


a bitter boy like him

by boos



Series: riverdale belongs to the gays [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, jughead is ace btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-06-22 10:18:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15579771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boos/pseuds/boos
Summary: Do you think you’d ever date Jughead?Archie hears the fuckingKill Billsirens go off in his head.





	a bitter boy like him

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this fic is the third part in a series, and while you can probably piece together a lot of the context of this fic without reading the other two, i would still recommend reading the one before this! it explains a lot of the stuff going on in the background and makes this a more enjoyable read (imo) especially because much of the first part of this fic runs on a concurrent timeline with the previous one
> 
> title is from lemon boy by cavetown

Jughead has been a part of Archie’s life for so long, Archie can’t remember a time where he wasn’t there.

They’re eight years old and playing in the backyard of Archie’s house with Betty, their feet bare and dirty, their lungs out of breath. Jughead’s been needlessly picking on Betty the entire day, hitting her too hard with his wooden sword or rolling his eyes at literally anything she's said. Betty keeps frowning and yelling at him before turning to Archie with big eyes and saying things like, “Archie, I know _you_ would never treat me like that.  _You’re_ a gentleman.”

At the end of the day, when Betty’s back home next door and he and Jughead are cleaning themselves up before dinner, Jughead bumps his shoulder and says, “Girls are gross. I only want to hang out with you.”

Archie feels momentarily sorry for Betty, but only momentarily. In the next second, he swells with pride and smiles at Jughead, a gap in his grin where he’s just lost one of his teeth.

 

 

 

They’re ten and hiding under a blanket as they watch a scary movie. Archie’s dad is upstairs in his office, but the house feels entirely empty as they see a doll creepily move its head in the background of the film.

Jughead gestures toward the main character erratically. “Why doesn’t she see it! Why would she even go  _in_ a room that has dolls like that!” He yells angrily.

Archie is holding the blanket so far up his face that only one eye pokes out. He closes it intermittently, suspecting that there will be a jump scare.

He’s not wrong; in the next moment, the doll jumps out at them from the screen and both of them flinch back, surprised. Jughead latches onto Archie like a life force. As the character on the screen fumbles out of the room and locks the door securely, as the horror music stops and the girl catches her breath, Jughead suddenly starts laughing. He laughs wildly enough that he snorts, which makes Archie giggle away his fear.

Jughead leans his head onto Archie’s shoulder, trying to catch his breath, and Archie feels his stomach flutter.

 

 

 

They’re twelve and Archie has followed Jughead to the library for the fourth time this month.  As Jughead checks out the second book in a long fantasy series he’s been reading, Archie sits in one of the many chairs the library has to offer, and stares up at the ceiling, trying to find faces in the bumpy paint. He sees a bright red flash out of the corner of his eye, and he turns toward it to find Cheryl and Jason Blossom walking out of the tutoring center. 

Cheryl stops by to talk to him, although she seems uninterested in whatever he has to say and more interested in lecturing him on how he needs to dress better.

“Archie, you’ve been wearing this same shirt of your dad’s since we were in the second grade.” She says, raising an eyebrow up at him and tugging at the fabric on his torso. “No girls will ever want to date you.”

“What mumbo jumbo are you spreading around now, Cheryl?” Jughead asks as he comes to stand by Archie’s side. The book is in the grasp of his hand, but his face looks displeased.

Cheryl zeros in on him. “And you’ve  _got_ to stop hanging around with this asshole.”

Archie, who is just now becoming aware of himself as a human being, as a boy, suddenly doesn’t have the courage to reprimand her and defend his best friend. He just sinks deeper into his chair, doesn’t look directly at either at them, and hopes the conversation will end.

Archie sees Jason roll his eyes behind his sister. “Cheryl.” He reprimands.

Jughead puts his hand up to his heart and lets his face fall theatrically. “Wow, Cheryl. That one really got to me.” He deadpans.

“Whatever.” Cheryl snaps at him.

“Cher, come on.” Jason says. He spares a momentary gaze at Archie and Jughead before he’s tugging his sister to the entrance.

As Archie and Jughead walk back to Sunnyside, the two of them stepping over the large cracks in the sidewalk out of childish habit, Archie clears his throat and says, “Don’t believe anything Cheryl Blossom says. You’re the coolest guy I know, and I’m glad you’re my best friend.”

Jughead doesn’t reply back immediately, but he blushes red instead and looks at the ground, clutching his book tightly in his hands. “Yeah, it’s whatever,” he says and then mumbles, “Thanks.”

Archie would bet that there’s a smile on Jughead's face if he would just look Archie in the eyes.

 

 

 

They’re fourteen and there’s something in the air between them, something that makes the hair on Archie’s arm stick up every time they accidentally brush hands. It’s unbearable and overwhelming. He doesn’t understand it, but he revels in it all the same. 

He wakes up early at sleepovers and watches Jughead breath in and out softly next to him, noticing the small freckles that have formed on his nose since summer. They eat lunch together every day at school, both marveling and recoiling at the intricacies of high school life, and Archie watches the way Jughead laughs like he’s not afraid if anyone’s watching. He draws into himself much more often these days – the courage of childhood has been stripped from him and has instead been replaced with an anxiety that swirls about his body – but when he’s with Archie it all seems to melt away.

They still hang out with Betty sometimes, although she keeps looking at Archie with eyes so starry it makes his chest constrict. He’s fourteen, but he knows her pedestals are set so high for him that he will never be able to meet them. He loves her, he does, and he thinks that maybe he could love her like  _that,_ but not when she sees right through him. Not when Jughead is right next to him, understanding him in every way possible.

 

 

 

They’re fifteen and the summer before sophomore year is the perfect setting for the subtle collapse of Archie’s life. 

He hears a gunshot for the first time and lays awake at night, picturing the way the bullet might have punctured Jason Blossom’s skull right through. Ms. Grundy’s smile promises him that everything will be okay as her hand trails down his bicep. Jughead falls silently away from his side and into a background character; Archie is too dumb to notice. Betty still wants him to give her the world, but he doesn’t know how to show her his empty hands and say,  _There’s nothing here. I’m sorry._

Then Veronica comes around, and he thinks,  _Oh, this could work._ She doesn’t know anything about him. She makes him laugh. She’s pretty.  _We could work,_ he thinks right before he ducks down to kiss her in the closet at Cheryl’s after-party.

While he’s not looking, Jughead is climbing up ladders into Betty’s room and holding her hand, mending the heart that Archie broke.

 

 

 

They’re somewhere in between sixteen and seventeen and they don’t see each other very often anymore, but they have some good moments in between (and a lot of bad ones, too.) 

The sunlight spills through Archie’s window, carefully inviting them to wake up and get at the world. Jughead, who is wrapped in blankets, lays on the air mattress on Archie’s floor and very obviously does not want to wake. A direct beam of light shines through Archie’s blinds and onto Jughead’s face though, which prevents him from getting back to sleep. Archie watches absentmindedly as Jughead huffs, frustrated, and shifts around.

It’s been such a long time since Archie has seen him outside of the linoleum lights of school or the harsh neon of Pop’s that seeing Jughead illuminated by sun feels like a prize.

Jughead looks up at him. When he notices that Archie’s been staring at him, he gives a soft smile and stretches his arms up above his head.

“G’morning,” Archie tells him, half of his words mumbled by the pillow he’s laying his head on.

Jughead laughs and scrubs at his face. “Morning.”

Archie smiles at how raspy his voice is in the morning. “What are you doing today?” He asks, thinking about how maybe they could take a trip down to Sweetwater for a couple hours and stick their feet into the current, or maybe if he could convince Jughead to play around on the drum set they still have in the garage.

Jughead reaches for his phone. “Betty and I were thinking of driving to Toledo for the weekend, actually.” He looks up at Archie with a bright, bright smile. “Jellybean really wants to meet her. Or well, re-meet her I guess. They must have met when we were all little, but I doubt Jelly remembers.”

And just like that, Archie deflates. The morning feels spoiled, like a flower rapidly wilting or a bubble poked so hard that it burst.

“Oh,” is all he can think to say, “That sounds like fun.”

“Yeah,” Jughead sighs happily, still texting away on his phone. “Oh, it looks like Betty’s awake already.” He focuses on tapping something out to her over text. A beat of silence passes between them. “Well… we’re probably going to be hitting the road soon, so I should hop on over next door.”

Archie spares a glance at his window. The curtains are pulled apart just enough for Archie to see the window of Betty’s room. He can’t see anything particular through it because of the way the sunlight is hitting the glass pane, but he can imagine Betty perched on the end of her bed, texting Jughead with a smile on her face.

“Say hi to your Mom and JB for me,” Archie says, looking back down to Jughead.

Jughead grins up at him. “For sure, man. Thanks for letting me sleepover.”

Archie wonders for a moment if Jughead had asked to stay the night because it would be more convenient for him when he and Betty wanted to take off for Toledo. The thought makes him sad and he tries to ignore the way his stomach collapses.

“Anytime, Jug.”

Archie stays in bed for thirty minutes after Jughead leaves, all his energy and hope for the day zapped away. He thinks about going back to sleep for a moment, but knows he won’t be able to. Then his phone buzzes from somewhere under his pillow, where he haphazardly shoved it last night.

He fishes it out and finds texts from Veronica, waiting to be opened.

 **_[9:56] Your Fav Ex-Girlfriend:_ ** _are you doing anything today?_

 **_[9:56] Your Fav Ex-Girlfriend:_ ** _cheryl and toni and i are going to the carnival in greendale 4 the afternoon. you wanna come?_

 **_[9:57] Your Fav Ex-Girlfriend:_ ** _please say yes lmao. i love cheryl and toni but i truly can’t stand to third wheel with them one more time this week._

Archie sighs, thinking firstly about how he shouldn’t have let Veronica change her contact name in his phone after they broke up, and then secondly about how it’s a miracle that Veronica can always manage to read his mind.

He sends back,  _sure. wat time?_

Later, as Archie's in the backseat of Cheryl's car posting pictures of the four of them eating caramel corn under the bright, campy lights of carnival rides, he scrolls down to see a picture of Betty and Jughead at an ice cream parlor with Jellybean perfectly slotted in between the two of them. She looks so old, much older than how Archie remembers her, and she looks so, so excited to be able to be apart of her brother’s life again, even if only for a day or two.

Archie should be excited for them too, but something about the photo  _exhausts_ him. Veronica peers over his shoulder, straining to see what he’s looking at. When her eyes fall on it, she lets a sigh out through her nose.

“They look happy.” She says idly, before turning her eyes back to the expanse of road in front of them.

 

 

 

They’re eighteen and Archie is a little high at Cheryl’s New Year’s Eve party, following Jughead through the winding maze that is Thistlehouse as Jughead promises to take him to the roof. 

“How do you even know how to get up to the roof of Cheryl’s house?” Archie asks him, very confused.

Jughead spares a look back at him over his shoulder. Archie sees the flash of his grin. “Cheryl loves to have Serpent parties here, and Sweet Pea and Fangs love nothing more than climbing onto shit.”

Archie blinks. “That’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

“Nah. You’ll see why once we get up there. It’s beautiful.”

Jughead leads him into a dark room. Archie thinks it might be a bedroom, but he doesn’t have time to investigate because Jughead is at the window, sliding it up with a push. He climbs up and out of it, and then crouches on top of the roof shingles.

He turns back to Archie. He looks beautiful under the moonlight, Archie thinks, all silver and mysterious. The kind of boy Jughead wanted to be for so long.

“Do you think you’ll be okay up here? Like, can you stand and not fall off?” Jughead asks him, worried. “I didn’t think about that.”

Honestly, Archie doesn’t trust himself to not fall off the roof and to his death, but he wants to be where Jughead is. “Sure.” He says, and shrugs. He’s not as high as he was an hour ago, anyway. His high has been reduced to a solid hum buzzing around his body, something that makes him blink a little slower and makes him just feel a little separated from the rest of the world. But he can walk on his feet, he’s somewhat sure.

Jughead gives him a hand and helps him up onto the roof. He hangs tightly onto Archie, leading him the whole way across the roof, until they get to spot where Jughead wants them to be. He positions Archie so he looks out into the forest, and then he sits him down.

“You should be good here. Do you feel comfortable?” Jughead asks him, crouching down in front of him.

“Yeah,” Archie breathes out, but he realizes he’s more anxious about it than he thought he would be. “Can I hold onto you?”

“Sure,” Jughead says and sits down next to him. He lets Archie winds his arm around Jughead’s.

Archie stares out into the black expanse of the sky and the forest that juts out beneath it. The stars are beautiful tonight and the party going on down below them thumps as a steady beat throughout the walls of Thistlehouse. The cold suddenly bites into Archie’s skin, and he wonders why it hasn’t snowed that much this winter.

“Hey,” he says to Jughead, “Why are we up here again?”

Jughead laughs; Archie feels the movement against his side. “It’s almost midnight, Arch. They’re going to shoot off fireworks.”

“How will we know when it’s going to be midnight?”

Just as Archie asks this, a chorus of voices chant out below them,  _Ten, nine, eight…_

He sees Jughead smile out of the corner of his eye. This is the longest they’ve hung out in a while, Archie recalls, and it feels nice. Archie had tried to support him after his monumental breakup with Betty and Jughead had accepted some of it, but for the most part he’d shut Archie down.  _I’m fine,_ he’d spat at Archie once, a few weeks into senior year.  _You don’t need to check up on me all the time._ Archie had been surprised at the venom in his voice, at the anger, and Archie had backed out and away from his life.

Now, as they sit under the blinding moonlight, on top of Cheryl’s roof, arm-in-arm, Archie’s glad that they can have this moment. It’s the closest they’ve been in weeks, maybe even months.

As the voices count down,  _five, four, three…_ Archie looks over at Jughead and has the sudden realization that he doesn’t really know him anymore. This isn’t new information, it’s a thought Archie’s had at the back of his mind for the longest time, ever since the explosion of sophomore year caused their lives to catapult in different directions and they’d never been able to ever truly reconnect again. They had moments, sure, and they had their memories, but there was always something keeping them apart from how they’d been as kids. Archie  _knew_ this, but he never really had the time to think about it until this exact moment.

The fireworks go off in the distant sky, being shot off from the football field of their high school where Archie knows his Dad is right now, having beers with all the other parents and sitting next to Alice Cooper in a fold out camping chair. The fireworks burst and crackle with dazzling light, but Archie doesn’t watch them. Instead, he watches Jughead’s face, his gaze fixed on the way the colors light up Jughead’s expression in different ways, the way they sparkle in the reflection of Jughead’s eyes.

A voice in the back of his head asks,  _Do you think if your younger selves saw you now, would they would be disappointed in what you’ve become? Would they cry?_

Archie knows the answer, but he doesn’t want to think it out.

 

 

 

They stay out on the roof for as long as they can manage before the cold threatens them with frostbite. Archie’s sad and disappointed; he doesn’t ever want to leave the little bubble they created on top of the roof together, but he knows he has to follow Jughead back inside. 

They walk through the upstairs in silence, trying to find the stairs down. Jughead leads him back through hallways and hallways full of doors.

As they’re coming to the end of one, one of the doors pop open and light spills out. The sound of running water is turned off, the light switch is flicked, and out comes Betty Cooper, still drying her hands on a towel on the way out.

Jughead comes to such a full stop that Archie accidentally runs into him. Archie lets out a surprised, “Oof!”

Betty looks up at the two of them standing in the hallway. Archie can’t make out her expression, but she does give a smile. “Hey, guys.” Archie thinks he remembers her doing shots in the kitchen sometime during the night. He wonders how she's doing.

“Heyo,” Archie throws at her.

“Hey, Betts.” Jughead says. He sounds reserved.

“Hey.” Betty says again. She sounds a little sad and also a little drunk.

A beat of silence passes over all of them. The party is still in full swing downstairs, music loudly thumping and people laughing shrilly. Archie thinks about how this party might be the first time the two of them have seen each other outside of school since they broke up.

Betty looks down at her feet for a moment. “Hey, um, Jughead?” She asks shyly as she glances up again. “Could we talk?”

 

 

 

Archie’s not sure what emotion runs through him as he’s in the kitchen fifteen minutes later and he hears Veronica ask, “Where’s Betty?” 

He feels antsy, that’s what it is. He feels on high alert. He feels anxious, and he doesn’t want Veronica to know where Betty is. He doesn’t want anyone to. He wishes  _he_ didn’t know.

“I think she went upstairs to find a bathroom.” Kevin replies.

 

 

 

Veronica and him were a failed thing, a mismatched pair. They both seemed to realize this around the same time and broke it off mutually with respect to one another, but somehow that didn’t stop them from fooling around with each other for months afterward. It’s was a poorly hidden secret that the whole town seemed to know about and something both Archie and Veronica’s parents  _loved_ to tease them about.  

So you can imagine Archie’s surprise when he and Veronica are laying exhaustively in bed after the party – not because they'd been fooling around, just because Veronica needed somewhere to crash – and Veronica turns to him and starts describing how she’d walked in on Betty and Jughead hooking up, how she and Betty had kissed at midnight, and then ending this conversation with a spectacular, “I’m in love with Betty. I’ve been in love with her since I met her.”

He’s initially shell shocked because this information challenges everything he thought he knew about Veronica, but then he thinks about it for a moment and it all clicks into place a little bit.

They awkwardly talk for a few moments wherein Veronica expresses her opinion on how Betty will never like her back, anyway, and then Archie makes a comment about Jughead in regards to the situation and Veronica looks at him. She just  _looks_ at him for a moment.

Only Veronica Lodge would end her coming out to Archie with, “Do you think you’d ever date Jughead?”

Archie, who is still trying to process the information that his ex-girlfriend turned best friend who he still sometimes sleeps with is  _gay_ and he didn’t  _know,_ is completely blindsided to every turn this conversation is taking.

Veronica’s voice repeats in his head,  _Do you think you’d ever date Jughead?_

Archie hears the fucking  _Kill Bill_ sirens go off in his head.

“What?” He breathes out. “What do you mean?” His mind is desperately searching for some kind of answer for this conversation, but suddenly his brain has turned to mush and every thought he has is something he can’t translate into words.

He feels himself start to sweat as he panics. Why is he panicking?

“Archie, I just meant –”

“Veronica, I’m – I’m not in love with Jughead.” It’s the only thing he knows how to say. It’s the same thought that he’s told himself for years.

But his mind keeps having these flashes of memories. Of the unspeakable feeling between them at fourteen. Of the soft, silent moments they have with each other – even these days – that Archie’s never experienced with anyone else. Of the happiness that swells within him every time Jughead pays attention to him or gives him the kind of smile that makes his cheeks dimple.

“It was just an innocent question. You don’t have to get so mad.” Veronica whispers to him. He can register the strain in her voice, the seeming hurt, but he’s so confused about all of it.

“I’m not mad.” He says, because he’s not. He just doesn’t know what he is. “I’m not. It just caught me off guard. Veronica, I can’t believe you think I’m in love with Jughead. I’m – I never – I’m not like –”

His instinct is to say,  _I’m not like you,_ but he stops before he’s ahead. His heartbeat pounds throughout his head.

Veronica’s eyes widen at him momentarily, like she knew what he was intending to say, and her face just  _hardens._

“Maybe I was wrong, okay? I got it wrong.” Every syllable she says is a slice against Archie’s skin. “I don’t know. I’m tired. We need to sleep. I’m sorry.”

She turns away without another word and Archie is met with the image of her back, the dawn of morning spilling a soft light onto to it. There’s a golf ball sized mound of anxiety in his throat and his blood is rushing around his body with panic and frenzy.

If his body and mind weren’t so exhausted, Archie thinks he would stay awake forever, staring at the soft grey t-shirt on Veronica’s back and thinking about Jughead and himself, trying to smash the two pieces together to make sense out of anything, but the next thing Archie knows is sleep and the darkness behind his eyelids.

 

 

 

When he wakes up hours later, he’s alone in his bed and his dad is knocking on his door, telling him breakfast is ready.

As Archie digs into his scrambled eggs, sitting tired as ever at the kitchen table downstairs, Fred lets him know that Veronica left this morning while he was asleep.

Archie pushes his eggs around his plate for a moment. “How did she seem?” He asks.

Fred looks confused as to why Archie would even ask this. “She was fine,” he says, crunching down on a strip of bacon, “Pretty eager to get out of here, though. What’d you do to break her heart this time, Arch?” The comment is in jest, Archie knows, but something about it weighs him down.

He remembers then, what she’d said to him last night. If Archie’s going to be completely honest, he had been so caught up in Veronica telling him that she thought he had feelings for Jughead that he’d totally forgotten she’d opened up to him about Betty. About being  _gay_. Guilt floods his veins.

“We’re not dating anymore, Dad.” Archie says, even though he knows it will fall on deaf ears.

“Right. That’s why she was sleeping in your bed last night.”

Archie piles eggs into his mouth, giving him an excuse not to answer.

 

 

 

There’s a knock on his bedroom door at around noon. Archie hasn’t moved from his spot in his bed since he came back upstairs from eating breakfast, so he’s currently laying shirtless, only in flannel pajamas pants, wrapped in his comforter with a controller in his hand as he squints at the TV in front of his bed.

“Come in, Dad!” He yells toward the door without looking. 

The door creaks open slightly and someone slips through that, out of the corner of his eye, definitely does not look like his dad. His gaze shifts over to find Betty, looking exhausted but comfortable in her pajamas and a large coat she must have worn to walk over here.

“Hey,” she says as she shucks the coat off and hangs it over Archie’s desk chair. “Are you doing anything? Is it cool if I hang out here for a bit?”

He can’t think of the last time she just showed up to hang out since they were kids, which makes him immediately curious, but Archie sits up in his bed and scoots over so she can sit next to him. ”Yeah, of course. I’m just playing video games.”

She slides in next to him, sticking her legs under the covers, and settles back into the pillows. “What is this?” She asks, looking at the screen.

“Um,” Archie says as he goes to a save checkpoint, “It’s a  _Legend of Zelda_ game. Jughead and I used to play it as kids. I don’t know if you remember.”

Betty hums and she peers at the screen. “I do, a little. That’s cool.” she says, but her voice sounds empty, like they’re just filler words.

Archie puts his controller down. "How are you, though? What’s up?”

She adjusts her position then, flipping around until she’s sitting further down the bed and opposite of him. She hikes her knee up to hold it against her chest; she’s wearing the faded, pink sweatpants that she’s had for years.

Betty sighs. “Can I talk to you about something? I… don’t really know who else to talk to.” She pauses with contemplation obvious on her face and then turns back to him. ”You’re not really the ideal candidate for this, but you’re the best choice out of the people I trust.”

Archie nods his head, nervous all of a sudden. “Uh, sure.”

She leans forward a fraction, some of her hair spilling over her shoulder. She does a sharp intake of breath before asking, “What would you say if I said I liked Veronica?”

Archie blinks. “What?” He blurts out, “She told me she saw you kissing Jughead last night.”

Betty is immediately embarrassed. “I – yeah, I did, but it stopped soon after. We spent the rest of the night just talking. We’re friends again, I think.”

Archie is so wildly confused about literally everything and everyone, but he vaguely registers relief flood through his blood that Jughead and Betty didn’t hook up. “Oh. That’s good.”

“Yeah,” Betty nods, and then her eyes turn glassy, “but I actually kissed Veronica last night too, and I… I don’t know. You know those people in your life who you look at and think: if one thing was different, only one thing, maybe we’d be together. Like maybe somewhere in another universe we’re together, but just not in this one?”

Archie wants to say,  _Yes, you._ He can’t even count on his hands how many times he’s thought about it in the past few years while looking across at Betty and Jughead at a booth in Pop’s or in the student lounge. Not necessarily because he  _wants_ to date Betty, but just because he – well – he just thought he would at some point. That someday they’d connect and have the innocent fling everyone had told them they would ever since they were kids.

But he keeps his mouth shut as Betty continues with, “I’ve had this dumb thought for years that there’s a universe somewhere where instead of dating Jughead, I dated Veronica. And even though I loved Jughead, a part of me started looking at Veronica as this kind of ‘What if?’ I never took it super seriously, and we weren’t really close for a while, but now it’s like… it’s like I look at her and I just…”

Betty presses her lips together in thought for a moment, and then she finally looks Archie in the eyes again. “I just like her so much, I think.” She tells him. “She makes me feel so warm inside sometimes that it’s like I could  _burst_.” 

Archie could scream with all the information he now has stored inside of his body.  _Betty, she told me she was gay last night and is also in love with you and also she told me I was in love with Jughead and that makes me feel queasy in both good and terrible ways._

But he doesn’t know how he would even begin to say these things, and he doesn’t know if he wants to, if he should, if half of that information is even his to share.

Instead he looks at her and says, “I think you should go for it.”

Betty looks surprised. “Archie, we’re just about to go into our second semester of senior year. That’s… that’s not feasible.”

“You could do it. If there’s two people who could figure something like that out, it’s you two.”

“I don’t even know if she likes me.” Betty looks at him cautiously. “I mean, aren’t you guys like… hooking up or whatever?”

“Not anymore.”

Betty sighs. “You said that last time, and it’s never true.”

Archie shakes his head adamantly. “This time is different. And it was never serious anyway. Veronica and I… we do the friendship thing a lot better.” He says, “Listen, you should go for it. You should.”

Betty just sighs, her shoulders deflating. She looks like the conversation has zapped a lot of energy out of her. She presses her lips together again. “I’ll think about it,” she tells him warily, “but I just don’t know, Arch.”

“Come on,” Archie says, grinning and leaning over to shake her playfully, “When have I ever lead you astray?”

Betty’s eyes widen with shock and disbelief, like he’s just said the dumbest thing she’s ever heard. She laughs at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Oh Archie,” she says, ruffling his already messy hair, “You say the wildest things sometimes.”

“Hey,” he says as he pouts, but it only makes Betty giggle even more.

She stays for a little while after that, watching Archie jump around in his video game and bossing him around on what she thinks he should do. He lets her because it seems to make her feel better, and it does make him feel a little smug when he solves the level’s puzzle by doing the exact opposite of what she suggests. She knocks him in the shoulder and boos him every time, but he just grins.

 

 

 

 _hey. if ur free we should hang out soon._  

Archie’s thumb has been hovering over the ‘send’ button for the past five minutes. He’s not sure what is with the tangle of anxiety seizing him all of a sudden. Actually, this is a lie; he does know and it definitely has to do with the conversation he and Veronica had last night and all the subsequent thoughts he’s had since.

He hits ‘send’ before he can regret it and then locks his phone, dropping it out of his hands so he won’t think about it.

Then Archie sits on his bed for a minute, still thinking about it, before his phone buzzes and he picks it up eagerly.

 **_[3:05] Jughead:_ ** _THE Archie Andrews is asking me to hang out? Little old me?_

Archie instantly relaxes at Jughead’s response. He can hear Jughead’s voice saying the words perfectly in his head.

 **_[3:06] Jughead:_ ** _But yeah, man, I would love to._

Archie takes a leap as he texts back,  _what r u doing right now?_

 **_[3:08] Jughead:_ ** _Nothing much at the moment, but tonight at 7 we’re gonna have a bonfire in Sunnyside and you’re welcome to come. It will be mostly Serpents, like Sweet Pea and Cheryl and everyone, but I’d love to have you there. :)_

Archie scratches his head. His track record with the Serpents has never been amazing, and although everything has settled down and he’s on what he would call okay terms with most of them, he’s not sure someone like Sweet Pea would love to have him there.

Archie types,  _r u sure thats a good idea? i dunno if any of the serpents rly like me._

 **_[3:09] Jughead:_ ** _Arch, I wouldn’t invite you if I didn’t think it was a good idea. Plus, they all have to do what I say ,after all, since I am the head honcho._

 **_[3:09] Jughead:_ ** _The big cheese, even, if you will._

 **_[3:09] Jughead:_ ** _But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to._

He thinks about it for a moment. The thought of going to the bonfire makes him nervous, and all he imagines is Sweet Pea scowling down at him before he punches Archie right in the face. It’s a dramatic scenario, one that Archie knows in his right mind won’t happen, but he also can’t help but worry about it.

He stares down at the text conversation for a minute more and then sighs.

_sure ill come._

 

 

 

When Jughead had said bonfire, Archie assumed it would be more of a campfire in the trailer park somewhere with a few of his friends. He does not expect to see a raging, raging fire that looks as tall as Sweet Pea as he stands next to it, Jughead silhouetted next to him, and quite a few dozen people milling about around it. People seem happy and jovial, sipping beers and laughing in between conversation. 

Archie walks over awkwardly, suddenly too aware of his body and the fact that he doesn’t really belong here, that he is an  _other_ to these people. But he is not a complete other to Jughead, whose face lights up a upon seeing Archie.

“Hey!” He calls to Archie, waving his hand. The fire illuminates his face and to make his grin seem more boyish.

Archie replies, “Hey to you too,” after he gets closer.

Jughead pulls him in for a hug, wrapping his arms around Archie’s waist for a flash of a moment. The Archie from last week wouldn’t have thought anything of this, but the Archie of today freaks out a little bit when Jughead does this. He freaks out so much in the moment that he forgets to hug Jughead back.

Sweet Pea nods his head toward Archie after they part. “Hey, Andrews,” he says before taking a sip of his Corona. He leans down and grabs one from the cooler. “Want one?” He asks, but he’s already thrown the bottle over to Archie before he’s done with the sentence.

Archie catches the cold bottle of beer in his hands and looks down at it apprehensively. “Ah… I drove here.”

“You can stay over at mine tonight,” Jughead says to him, “If you want to.”

Archie is momentarily surprised; Jughead used to  _never_ offer up sleepovers at his trailer, even when they were kids. He’d always been seemingly self conscious of the lack of space and the state of it. Almost all of their sleepovers happened exclusively at Archie’s house.

“Uh,” Archie dawdles, feeling the cold condensation of the bottle seep into his palms, “Sure?” Archie shrugs and takes the bottle opener Sweet Pea offers him to crack it open.

 

 

 

There’s a lot about the night that continues to surprise Archie, but perhaps the biggest one is how  _nice_ the Serpents are to him. 

It’s like the past years of Archie’s needless, negative opinions of them have been washed away and now he’s debt free. They all laugh with him and talk with him like he never waged a town war against them, never attacked them and wrongfully blamed them, never egged them on. Even the older members clasp a hand on his shoulder and smile at him, ask him how his dad’s doing.

One of them, an older man Archie doesn’t know the name of, with a long, white beard and a few missing teeth, says to him, “That boy talks about you often, you know.” He says, and points to where Jughead is talking to a group a few feet away. “He admires you very much.”

Archie can’t detect what the comment makes him feel entirely, but he can understand the fat wad of embarrassment that settles in his stomach. He looks across at Jughead and wonders how that’s even possible after everything Archie had done to him and the Serpents over the years, after every week they spent not talking. He feels so undeserving. He wants to shake Jughead until he realizes the truth. Mostly he wants to apologize, just for everything, but he can’t, not when they’re in this sea of people.

Eventually Archie makes his way toward the sidelines of the party, searching for water or at least a cooler that contains something other than beer. What he finds instead is red hair he knows so well.

Archie has never been so relieved to see Cheryl in his life. “Cheryl,” he calls, walking toward where she’s sitting, bundled up in her red leather jacket and a blanket, “Hey.”

“Oh hello, Archie.” She looks up at him impressed. “Jughead said he invited you, but I honestly didn’t expect you to show up.”

“Honestly, me neither,” he admits, and then leans toward her, hoping not to be heard by anyone except her, “but everyone here is so  _nice_.”

Cheryl quirks an eyebrow at him. “It took you a couple years to figure that one out, huh?”

For a moment, Archie wants to cut open his stomach and spill all his guts to Cheryl, talk to her about how much of Jughead’s life he hadn’t realized he was missing, but now that he’s here and it’s actualized in front of him, guilt swims around in his body like poison. He doesn’t have the words, though, and when he does open his mouth to reply with whatever gibberish his brain comes up with instead, he’s cut off abruptly by sounds behind them. Loud, angry voices are being carried over from by the bonfire. Cheryl sits up in her chair with immediate interest and Archie swivels around to survey the scene.

They see that Jughead and Toni are talking to a couple guys Archie doesn’t recognize, but he can immediately tell that they’re not having a pleasant conversation. Jughead says something to one of the men and Archie watches the man’s face twists up in anger and disgust. Both Archie and Cheryl get up immediately.

“Those look like Ghoulies,” Cheryl mutters to him quickly as they stride over. Archie pales.

He can’t see Jughead’s face as he walks to stand near him, but he can see Toni’s, and Toni is looking both like she wants to strike out at the man in front of them and also like she’s worried Jughead will do so.

The dude just seems mildly amused now. “Come on, little snake. You know it’s what your daddy would have done; you should follow in his steps.” He gives a lazy, smug smile down at Jughead.

Toni immediately wraps an arm around Jughead’s bicep, firmly holding him back from doing anything. Jughead, surprisingly calm, just laughs. “You must not know a lot about my dad, then.”

Archie feels out of place standing in the crowd of people who have been drawn over by the apparent fight going on. His eyes dart around nervously, trying to judge what’s going to happen. Sweet Pea and Fangs have gathered around, a few other young Serpents behind them, and both of them seem tense. Cheryl also seems tense beside Archie, but she's only focused on Toni.

Some of the silent men, standing behind their leader for support, nudges him in the shoulder and nods his head around. The dude in front of Jughead seems to suddenly notice that he’s grabbed the attention of everyone. He stares down at Jughead. “Why don’t we go somewhere more private?”

Jughead’s silent for a moment, like he’s considering it. This makes Archie panic. “Jug, don’t,” he mutters, like he can’t help it.

The Ghoulie’s gaze flicks up to him and he raises his eyebrow. There’s a glimmer in his eyes like recognition. It makes the hair on Archie’s arms stand up. “I didn’t know you were spoken for,” the Ghoulie comments, referring to Jughead, but not taking his eyes off of Archie.

Archie puffs his chest up a little bit and steadies his shoulders, but before he can do something stupid, Jughead is answering the man. “I’m not,” he says, his voice hard, “but I agree that I don’t want to have this conversation with you right now, especially not in private for no one to be witness of.”

The Ghoulie seems pissed. “We’ve been trying to contact you for weeks, Jones.”

“Yes,” Jughead grates out, “and I’ve given you an answer before, it’s just not one you  _like_.”

The man  _tsk_ s. “Because you’re making a mistake.” He swoops down close to Jughead’s face and it makes Archie nervous. “If you’d just come on over and have a nice, civil talk with us, then I think you’d find yourself more agreeable.”

Jughead laughs. “I’ve never known any Ghoulie to believe in ‘nice, civil talks.’” Jughead says, putting air quotes around the words. “I think you should leave.”

The Ghoulie narrows his eyes. “I think you should come with me.”

Sweet Pea steps forward into the light of the fire, absently cracking his knuckles. “Do what the boy says, or else.”

One of the back up Ghoulies steps toward Sweet Pea. He towers over Sweet Pea with a good couple of inches and it makes Archie’s anxiety turn into adrenaline. He steps forward to stand at Jughead’s side and he looks the main Ghoulie right in the face as he says, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll do what Jughead says.”

The Ghoulie looks Archie up and down disinterestedly. Then he catches Archie’s eye, sends him a quick, toothy smile, there's something in Archie's face that looks like a fist, and the next thing Archie knows he’s doubled over, his hand over his nose as blood spills out from his face and onto the ground. Then there’s a weak kick to his legs and a shove that doesn’t manage to knock him down, but still hurts.

He vaguely registers the cluster of violent noise that’s just sparked around him. As he stands back up slowly, he finds that it’s hard to focus on a lot, but he sees that the Ghoulie who’s just punched him is being held back and shoved away by Jughead. The Ghoulie finds his balance and steadies himself, focusing in on Jughead, and without thinking much about anything beside the basic hum of survival and adrenaline, Archie staggers forward and punches the guy in the face. Pain explodes in Archie’s knuckles as his fist lands more on the guy’s jaw than any other feature on his face, but the dude staggers back easily.

In that moment, Archie feels pretty triumphant, and then he gets suckerpunched again.

 

 

 

Sweet Pea frowns as he dabs at Archie’s nose and chin with a rag, trying to clean up the dried blood there. Archie hisses in response at the pain;  _everything_ feels bruised and tender. Especially his ego.

They’re all cramped in the small bathroom of the Jones’ trailer: Sweet Pea’s standing by the medicine cabinet, and he’s got Archie sitting on the closed toilet while Jughead stands nervously in the space that’s left and Cheryl and Toni crowd in the door frame. Archie thinks Fangs is in the kitchen; he’d said something about chips.

All of them look a little roughed up, but none of them had gotten the brunt of the hits like Archie had. Sweet Pea seems to have a black eye forming, one that will match Archie’s, and Toni has a few scrapes on her chin. Cheryl looks untouched, but certainly pissed off.

Jughead’s bruised, but right now he just looks concerned. He's as pale as a ghost. “Arch,” he says softly, like it hurts him. He visibly swallows and then reaches for Archie. His hand lands on the juncture where Archie’s neck meets his shoulder. Jughead’s hand is cold and clammy and it falls uncomfortably onto Archie’s skin, but Archie lets him get away with it.

“Relax, Jug.” Sweet Pea says, applying some sort of bandage to the bridge of Archie’s nose and shooing Jughead's hand away. “You’re gonna pop a blood vessel. Focus on the fact that the kid is okay.”

Jughead sighs, running his hands messily through his hair. “I’m – I’m just sorry,” Jughead says, ignoring Sweet Pea and only looking at Archie, “But also you’re stupid and you shouldn’t have stepped forward into the argument.” The words hold no real mirth behind them, there’s just exhaustion.

“Yeah, are you all forgetting that  _Archie’s_ the one who instigated the fight?” Cheryl asks, shooting Archie an unimpressed look.

“Cher,” Toni says softly and reaches her arms around her waist, “He didn’t mean to.”

Archie thinks he hears Cheryl mutter,  _He still did it, though,_ but it’s overlooked by Fangs yelling from the living room, “Hey, Jones? Your dad’s outside – he wants to talk to you.”

If Jughead could pale even more, he would. He shoots a nervous look at Toni and Cheryl, who give him tense looks back. Jughead lets out a breath. “I’ll be right back.”

“We’ll come with you,” Toni tells him, dragging Cheryl after him as he leaves the room, “For moral support.”

They hear the trailer door slam close, and then Archie and Sweet Pea are left in silence.

He watches Sweet Pea fiddle with the first-aid kit, popping things in and out of it, ringing the wet rag stained with Archie’s blood out into the sink. It leaves a wash of wine red around the porcelain basin, and Sweet Pea scrubs away at it. It’s only a moment before he speaks.

“They’re right, you know. You shouldn’t get involved with situations that aren’t about you.” Sweet Pea says, eyeing Archie from the side. “That’s always been your problem, Andrews. You throw yourself into everything. Not everyone in this town needs you to be their hero.”

“I was just trying to make sure Jughead was going to be safe,” Archie says, feeling helpless and guilty. He knows it’s a moot point to argue, but he has to rally for something. “What if he had gotten hurt? Like  _badly._ ”

“It would have been a much bigger problem for Jughead if  _you_ had gotten hurt so badly that I couldn’t patch you up than if he had collected some more bruises. Stay out of it next time.” Sweet Pea tells him this with finalty. “Jughead can handle his own. He’s our leader afterall, we trust him to do that.” He sighs then, and does a little shrug. “Well, I guess he’s not our leader for much longer.”

Archie’s brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

Sweet Pea sends him a funny look. “He wants to go away for school.” He says this like,  _Duh, didn’t you know?_ Archie hadn’t.

“I guess I didn't think about that,” Archie admits, “like… about what he’d do about the Serpents when he went to college.” He twists his mouth to the side as he eyes the snake tattoo that’s loud and bold at it’s place on Sweet Pea’s neck. “What are you going to do, Sweet Pea?”

Sweet Pea hums. “I think I’ll stay around here for another year, work myself to the bone, and then save up to move to as close to New York City as I can get.” He shrugs. “I think at one point or another we’d all like to get out of here. None of us wanna end up like the old guys at the bar who wheeze at us and show off their serpent tattoos like it’s all they have left.”

Archie’s silent with contemplation for a moment. He opens his mouth, maybe to say something bullshit in an attempt to comfort Sweet Pea, but then they hear the trailer door open again, and the three others file back into the bathroom, all visibly shaken. 

Sweet Pea looks at them cautiously. “That bad?”

“FP didn’t like that Archie, who's a civilian, got involved. It just looks bad.” Toni says, shooting a sympathetic look toward Archie.

Archie chooses to ignore the guilt that flushes through his body and he looks up at Jughead instead. “What did the Ghoulies want from you anyway?” He asks.

Jughead looks pained. “They’ve been trying to get us to move drugs for them again, like we did in the old days… it was a long time ago, back when my dad wasn’t doing so hot and needed the cash. But I kept telling them no, obviously, which they didn’t like.” For a moment, he looks like he might throw up, but then he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a breath. When he opens them, he looks a little more stable.

Toni reaches across to lay a comforting hand on Jughead’s arm. “It’ll be fine, Juggie. Your dad will handle it.”

“He shouldn’t have to handle it,” Jughead blurts out, “I know he’s been taking care of some stuff for me in preparation for when I leave, but this – I should at least be able to do this.”

“Hey,” Archie says, nudging him with his knee, “What’s done is done. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten into a fight. Obviously, I didn’t mean to,” he sends Jughead a sheepish and embarrassed smile, “But this is kind of my fault. If there’s anything I can do…”

Cheryl huffs an annoyed laugh. “Please, Archie, I think you’ve done enough already.”

Archie frowns, but his attention is caught by Jughead nudging him back. He looks down at Archie with soft eyes suddenly. “Hey, it’s okay.” Then he laughs; the sound immediately floods relief through Archie’s body. “Cheryl’s kind of right though: you’ve already paid your dues.” He says this as his hand goes to cradle the sides of Archie’s face. His thumb drags down the tender flesh around Archie’s eye, where black, blue, and yellow must be forming on his skin.

The touch makes Archie take a sharp intake of breath on instinct. He’s glad he can blame it on the pain. Jughead’s hand drops away.

Sweet Pea rattles a prescription bottle in Archie’s face to catch attention. “You’re gonna take a couple of these bad boys and they’ll make the pain go away, but they’ll also make you kind of loopy. Take two a day until the bottle runs out. Okay?” Sweet Pea waits for Archie to nods in understanding.

“Sweets, where did you get those?” Toni asks, inspecting the bottle with an air of a laugh.

He shrugs. “I have my sources. Someone’s gotta be mama bird around here and medicate y’all.” He turns around to pack all of his things back into the first-aid kit and then says, “Are we all ready to go back to the bonfire? I’m gonna need a beer after all this.”

“Sweet Pea!” Toni cries. “Archie just got the lights punched out of him. Plus, I think the bonfire’s disbanded by now.”

Archie frowns, but it causes shooting pains so he smooths out his expression. “Hey, I punched him too.”

Nobody’s listening to him. “There’s always a party at the Wyrm.” Sweet Pea points out, stacking the kit back into Jughead’s medicine cabinet.

“I think Archie and I will just stay here.” Jughead says, his gaze staying on Archie’s face for a beat before it moves to look around at everyone else.

Archie wants to frown again, but he knows the consequences this time. He justs waves his hand and says, “What? No, it’s fine. I came here to do more than just get punched and hang out in your trailer.”

“Yeah,” Jughead says, staring at him like he’s stupid, “but then you got  _punched_ , like you said, which oftentimes throws a wrench into things.”

Cheryl yawns in the background, stretching her arms up and out before she shakes them out. “Listen boys, it’s pretty late anyway.” She says as she leans against Toni. “I believe Antoinette and I will be going home to get our beauty rest.”

Sweet Pea groans. “You guys are no fun.”

Jughead laughs at him and pats him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go with Fangs?”

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes. “We all know that Fangs is going to ditch me in favor of seeing Kevin. No one has any loyalty in this gang anymore.” He frowns and holds up a finger. “Rule number one: no Serpent stands alone.”

This causes everyone to give a burst of laughter; Cheryl even snorts. She pats Sweet Pea’s cheek patronizingly and says, “Oh honey, go have your pity party somewhere else where someone will believe it.”

Archie finds this comment harsh, but it has a smile tugging on Sweet Pea’s lips. “Let me complain just this once, Blossom.” But Cheryl’s already out the door, laughing at him from afar.

After everyone’s left, the trailer seems eerily silent as Archie walks back through to the living room. He lands on the couch with a springy huff. He doesn’t even notice that Jughead’s followed him until there’s a soft touch on his shoulder, and Archie looks up to find Jughead staring down at him. He still looks a little worried and a piece of his hair falls into his eyes.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jughead asks. His eyes travel up and down Archie’s face for a moment, and he almost looks like he wants to reach out and touch the injuries again, like maybe he could cure them if he just tried hard enough.

Archie smiles up at him, goofy and uninhibited, happy to be cared for, and says, “Yeah, don’t worry Juggie.” He puffs out his chest exaggeratedly. “I’ll gladly come to your rescue any time.”

The way Jughead laughs at him and rolls his eyes has Archie’s cheek hurt from grinning. “Oh yeah?” Jughead teases, and then he pokes at Archie’s bruised cheekbone. It has Archie hissing in pain and Jughead giggles again. “That’s what I thought.”

Archie swats his hand away playfully. “Stop that. You're the worst.” He says, but he can’t stop grinning throughout the entire sentence.

 

 

 

These are the small things Archie notices about Jughead as Archie lies awake at six in the morning, laying on the other side of the fold-out couch, unable to get back to sleep:

Jughead has very long eyelashes. Like obscenely long. This isn’t something Archie really ever thought about, but looking at Jughead’s closed, sleeping eyes now has him reevaluating his life.

Jughead doesn’t snore, but he does this thing where he scrunches up his face for a quick second, almost like something disgusts him in his sleep, and then sniffles. It reminds Archie of the old guinea pig he had when he was nine.

Jughead has a scar on his face that Archie doesn’t remember from childhood. It runs the length of his right cheekbone and is fully-healed, white and fleshy. Archie stares at it for a while just trying to place where it came from, and then like a vivid dream he remembers the end of sophomore year, Penny Peabody, and Jughead’s bloody body being carried by his father like he was already dead.

Looking at the scar now, it seems harmless, a stamp of something that happened a long time ago. Something Jughead survived.

Maybe it’s the drugs Sweet Pea has him taking, but overall Archie finds that there is this softness about Jughead that Archie has never known to belong to somebody else. There is something simple in the way he breathes in and out, something warm in the essence of his presence, in his shoulders, in his mouth, slightly agape in sleep.

Veronica’s words echo in his mind as his eyes wander across Jughead’s face.  _Would you ever date Jughead?_

Archie groans and flips over onto his other side, irked. Except now his only view is the empty kitchen of the Jones’ trailer, static and cold in the morning. He can distantly hear FP snoring from the other room. Archie sighs, frustrated, and reaches for his phone.

The only thing in his notifications are messages from Betty, sent hours and hours ago yesterday that he somehow didn’t see.

_**[4:46] Betty:** ARCHIE SHE’S GAY_

_**[4:46] Betty:** ARCHIE VERONICA JUST TOLD ME SHE’S GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_**[4:46] Betty:** and she told me that YOU knew she was gay, you traitor._

Archie looks at the messages for a moment, trying to think of how to reply. He thinks about how easy it will be for Betty and Veronica to end up with each other, how much the two of them love each other even if the other doesn’t know yet. He wants to know why love has never been that easy for him.

He shuts his phone off without replying to the texts and stews in silence.

 

 

 

He and Jughead hang out a few times more over the last two weeks of winter break while Archie is doing a good job at ignoring Veronica, Betty, and their budding love story. 

It’s not that he’s angry at them or anything, it’s just that there’s so much going on in his brain that it overwhelms him. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to Veronica when he sees her again, because there are questions she asked that he’s pretty sure he has the answers for, but he doesn’t know how to deal with them. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to look into her eyes and apologize when all the guilt that plagues him weighs him down to make him anxious.

However, this does give him ample time to hang out with Jughead and ample time to remember how much he likes having Jughead by his side. The ease they have with each other even when they do nothing, the wonderful sound of Jughead’s laugh and the swell of pride in Archie’s chest knowing  _he’s_ caused it, the way Jughead reaches out to pull him by the loop of Archie’s jeans when he’s about to step in front of someone and get in the way or when he almost loses his balance. These simple things, these habitual acts, seem to bring them closer and closer each time they see each other, like they’re slowly stitching up a wound to finally be healed.

Archie revels in the small touches they share in a way he’s never done before. Where before Jughead touching his waist slightly or hugging him goodbye would not have even crossed his mind, now it’s all Archie can think about. The touches linger on him like the ghost of Jughead is following him around, taunting him, and it drives Archie fucking  _crazy._

Currently they’re sitting on the bed of Archie’s room, with Jughead fully flopped down onto it and Archie taking up the remaining space that he’s left. They’ve just finished watching an old movie they remembered from childhood while eating old take out, and now Jughead sits back satisfied, his belly full, and Archie watches him do so. Part of Jughead’s arm brushes against one of his knees, and it’s the smallest touch, but it has Archie’s whole body humming for some reason. 

Jughead looks up at him through half-lidded eyes brought on by his food coma. His gaze focuses on the bridge of Archie’s nose, where the bruising is now mostly just sallow yellow and a few spots of blue.

Archie raises his eyebrows up and down. “Do you like me better now that I have a sprained wrist and a broken nose?” Archie teases.

Jughead rolls his eyes. “First of all, Sweet Pea said your nose wasn’t broken, and second of all, don’t forget the black eye. It might be almost fully healed, but I can still see it.” Jughead brings a hand up and pokes Archie in the face. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore; now it’s just a sweet, subtle pain. “But, oh, yes,” Jughead agrees, nodding his head, “I mean, you know me: I love bad boys, and you’re the baddest boy of them all, Archibald.”

Archie tries to contain his smile and pouts instead. “Can you stop making fun of me? I got punched in your honor.”

Jughead laughs. “I’m so sorry, my knight in shining armor.”

Archie grins. “Now  _that’s_ more like it.” The way Jughead’s looking at him has him glowing a little bit. “Thanks for hanging out with me, by the way.” Archie blurts out before he has a chance to think it over.

Jughead tilts his head in confusion. “Why are you thanking me?”

Archie shrugs. “I don’t know… just thanks.” He wants to say,  _You have everything, you have so much, you have friends you can call family, you have so many people, and you’re still here with me._

Jughead smiles at him, but he still looks confused. “Archie…” he says with a ghost of a laugh, and then lets the words drop off. He just stares up at Archie, like he’s waiting for the end of the joke or something.

Archie’s gut tightens for no reason and suddenly he feels himself start breathing faster. There’s something between them, something in the way that Jughead is looking up at him, with such raw genuinity and honesty and  _love,_ something in the way that Archie looks down at him with all that and more. His chest fills up with what feels like helium. He feels a little like he could pass out.

And then, for reasons he doesn’t think through fully, he leans over and kisses Jughead on the lips.

He vaguely registers the way Jughead breathes in swiftly through his nose, and then suddenly Jughead’s hands are at his jaw and Archie is leaning even deeper into the kiss and –

“Boys!” Fred calls out to them, knocking as he opens the door.

Archie jumps away from Jughead and back up into a sitting position so fast he’s sure he has whiplash. His heart is beating wildly throughout his body and Jughead is looking up at him with wide eyes, but when Fred walks into the room, he doesn’t seem to notice any of this.

“Archie, did you eat my orange chicken?” Fred asks, frowning down at his son.

Archie wants to scream. He blinks for a moment, trying to comprehend anything, and looks up at his dad. “Uh…” his voice fries as he thinks, “I don’t – no, I don’t think so.”

“Hm,” Fred ponders, putting a hand on his hip as he thinks, “Well, it’s not downstairs.”

“Did you check the receipt?” Archie asks, realizing he sounds kind of out of breath and then takes in a big, long breath of air. “Maybe you forgot to order it.” He says, successfully sounding more casual this time.

Fred sighs. “Yeah, maybe.” He groans as he turns around. “Ugh, I was really looking forward to eating it after spending an hour answering emails. Well, whatever. Have a good rest of your night, boys.” He says, and then shuts the door behind him on the way out.

Archie looks back down at Jughead. He’s met with the same stare that was there when his dad walked in, but this time Jughead looks a little less wide-eyed and a little more… fond?

Their silent stare off last for a mere one second before Jughead  _bursts_ out laughing like it’s being ripped out of him. He laughs wildly and loudly, his eyes scrunched up, his hands going to clutch his stomach, his face turning red from the lack of oxygen. Archie watches him with an open-mouthed smile slowly creeping onto his own face.

Jughead attempts to suck in breaths in between his laughter, but it doesn’t really work. Archie’s full on grinning now and leans down to shake his shoulder. “Stop it,” he says, barely keeping the laughter out of his voice, “Dude, stop it, my dad will think you’re crazy.”

Jughead clutches Archie’s arm and the touching between them feels different now. Where it had been charged and confusing before, Archie now finds it full of something he wants. Jughead’s simple hand on his arm makes him lightheaded in a way that makes him have the desire to kiss Jughead again.

Jughead’s looking up at him, saying, “Oh my God, that was the worst,” but he sounds happy about it.

They look at it each for a moment again, smiling. Archie spares a glance down at his lips. He watches Jughead give a sharp intake of breath.

“I should get home,” he says on the exhale. The words scare Archie, but Jughead’s smiling through them.

“You should go home?” Archie echos back, his voice a little higher than usual.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, but he’s still smiling. His hand falls from where it was holding Archie’s arm, and Archie loosens his grip on Jughead’s shoulder until it’s barely there.

Archie doesn’t know where to go from here. He doesn’t know what any of this means. “Do you… do you want to hang out again tomorrow?”

Jughead’s smile changes then, turns more reserved, but his eyes shine up at Archie. He looks at Archie like he can’t believe Archie’s real. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

 

 

 

Later that night, when he’s almost ready for bed and he’s gotten up to shuck close the curtains on his window, he looks out at Betty’s room and finds her stationed there, looking at her phone, where it seems to be plugged in and charging. 

Archie feels a few things at once: he feels bad he never replied to her texts and that instead they’ve just been sitting on his phone, collecting dust. He also feels a lot of sudden guilt, looking out at her and knowing he kissed her ex-boyfriend just a few hours ago, even if it seems like Betty’s moved onto other things.

Archie takes a moment to let that sink in.  _He kissed her ex-boyfriend._

Archie sighs and shakes his head like maybe he can shake the thoughts out. He moves to grab his phone from his desk and returns to the window.

_hey. look up_

He looks at Betty, waiting for her reaction. Sure enough a few moments later, he watches as her face scrunches up in confusion at her phone and then realization as she looks up to find him in the window. She looks back down at the texts.

 **_[11:21] Betty:_ ** _Wow creepy much, arch?_

She levels him with a pointed look from her place perched by her window. It might just be the lighting, but her under eye bags are visible to Archie even from here. She looks exhausted.

He types back,  _lol sorry. also sorry i never replied to ur other txts. how r things going?_

He looks up at her, waiting. She reads the text and gives him a shrug. Archie’s surprised that she’s not reacting with full-out joy. She does a “so-so” gesture with her hand.

 ** _[11:22] Betty:_  ** _What about you?_

Archie takes in a breath. He looks across at her and shrugs too, before immediately typing out,  _what happened w ronnie?_

 ** _[11:22] Betty:_  ** _Haha nothing. I don’t think she likes me._

Archie frowns at his phone. He doesn’t even take a moment to look up at her before he’s furiously typing,  _maybe the timing has just been wrong._

 **_[11:23] Betty:_ ** _Haha, I don’t know archie… it doesn’t matter anyway. Second semester starts in two days._

Archie looks up at her for a moment to give her a disgusted look. He’s pleasantly surprised at the way she bursts into giggles at his expression.

He texts her,  _lol dont remind me,_ and then pauses for a moment before adding on,  _also u never kno what will happen._

Betty looks up from her phone to smile at him. It’s a smile he knows very well.

 **_[11:25] Betty:_ ** _Thanks arch._

 **_[11:25] Betty:_ ** _Well, sweet dreams, i’m gonna go to sleep. I’m super tired._

 **_[11:25] Betty:_ ** _See you at school_ **_❤️_ **

He looks up and waves goodbye just before she slides her curtains shut.

Archie sighs. He should really talk to Veronica.

 

 

 

He and Jughead organize to see a movie the next day. It’s fine – it’s some foreign film that Jughead really wanted to see – but Archie truly spends the entire two hours in the theatre thinking about what he and Jughead are. When they’d met up outside of the movie theatre, Jughead had greeted him normally with a hug and a casual hello, like nothing was abnormal.

It’s not like Archie was expecting Jughead to make out with him on site or anything, but he also doesn’t know what it means that Jughead was so cool about the whole thing.

Part of Archie is expecting for Jughead to act like the whole thing never happened and they’ll continue on with their lives, never talking about that time they kissed once, and the other part of Archie keeps eyeing Jughead nervously out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to like, yawn and put his arm around Archie’s shoulders or try to hold his hand in between the seats or some shit.

This obsessive cycle of thinking continues up until they’re walking back to Archie’s car and Jughead goes from behind him, “Hey, Archie, are you okay?” Archie turns around to see Jughead looking at him quizzically.

Archie immediately relaxes his shoulders, expelling tension he didn’t know was there, and he lets out a breath. He feels a bit ridiculous. “I – yeah, I don’t know. I guess it’s just the idea that it’s the last day of winter break is getting at me. And there’s like –” he looks away from Jughead then, “other stuff, too, I guess.”

He chances a glance back at Jughead and notices for the first time that something about Jughead is off, too. His eyes are darting all around Archie’s face. He looks… nervous.

It makes Archie feel a little more grounded. He takes a step closer to Jughead. “How are you, though?”

Jughead gives him a flash of a smile. “I’m fine.”

A beat passes between them.

Jughead laughs suddenly and it breaks up the silence. “Archie, what are we doing?” He asks, ridiculously, looking up at Archie.

Archie laughs too. “I don’t know.” He says and scratches the back of his head.

“Do you want to come over to my house?” Jughead asks. He peers up at Archie from under his eyelashes, and Archie will never admit that it makes his knees kind of weak.

“Sure,” Archie agrees, swallowing down the anxiety in his throat.

“My dad won’t be there.” Jughead says, and Archie feels his gut tighten.

 

 

 

Fifteen minutes later finds Jughead pressed up against the front door of the trailer, Archie’s hands on his jaw, their lips moving together. 

Archie feels how rigid Jughead is against his body and moves to kiss his neck. “You okay?” Archie asks just before he sucks on the juncture of Jughead’s neck to give him a hickey.

Jughead flinches like he’s been electrocuted at the feeling of Archie’s lips on his neck and he lets out a little huff of laughter. His hand weaves through Archie’s hair. “Archie…” He says.

Archie pulls back to look at Jughead. “What?” he breathes out.

Jughead’s eyes search his face for a moment. “Is it okay if we… stop for a moment?”

Archie blinks. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah. Is everything okay?”

Jughead smiles at him, still idly carding his hands through Archie’s hair. “Yeah, I’m just… I don’t know. Shouldn’t we talk about this? Shouldn’t we take it slow?”

Archie wants to tell him how they don’t have enough time to take it slow, how they should have started this years ago if they wanted to take it slow. But he steps back and says, “Yeah, I mean… what do you want to talk about?”

“This isn’t some – like – dumb hookup or whatever, right?” Jughead asks, jutting his chin out at Archie.

“What?” Archie asks, alarmed. “No, of course not.”

Jughead puts his hands up. “Listen, I just had to make sure.”

Archie clears his throat. “And this isn’t you still trying to get over Betty?” He asks.

Jughead looks like he could laugh. “Oh, no. No, no. I think both Betty and I have moved onto other things.”

Archie almost gasps with relief. “She told you? About…”

“Veronica?” Jughead asks, smiling with amusement. “Yeah, she told me the night of New Year’s Eve.”

“Dude, Veronica likes her too.”

“What? No way.”

“ _Yes_ way. But I haven’t told either of them about it yet.”

Jughead looks at Archie like he’s a big, fat doofus. “Why not?” He asks.

Archie feels himself flush. “Well – I just – Veronica and I haven’t really been talking because of some stuff and it just never seemed like the right time for Betty, and well –”

Jughead just smiles at him. He leans forward and gives Archie a quick kiss on the lips, and when Archie tries to deepen it for a moment, Jughead pulls back. “You should tell her.”

Archie lets out a breath. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He says, but he’s distracted by the fact of how much he wants to kiss Jughead again. He leans into Jughead just a little bit, but Jughead catches him by the shoulders.

“Hey, take it slow, yeah?” He asks, and a part of Archie wants to argue a little bit, but the way Jughead’s smile warms Archie’s chest makes his thoughts crumble. Jughead peers up at him. “This is random, but, uh, do you wanna come by the Wyrm with me? I have to stop by tonight, and I'm gonna run out of time.” He asks. He looks a little bit like he won’t know what to do if Archie says no.

Archie blinks, confused for a moment by the change in subject. “Oh, uh, yeah, sure.” He says, and then runs his hands through his hair. “If that’s what you want.”

Jughead’s face shutters with an expression that Archie can’t quite place, but then it’s back to neutral, a small smile on his face that Archie can’t help but notice doesn’t feel natural. “It’ll only be for a little while. We can come back here after.”

It’s not for only a little while. They stay until the Wyrm closes, until it’s so cold outside that it has Archie’s teeth shivering, until it’s so late that they’re forced to go their separate ways because they both have to wake up early for school tomorrow.

But Archie finds he doesn’t mind, because he spends most of his time there sitting on a bar stool, watching Jughead smile and laugh in a group of his people. Archie’s seen Jughead grin almost everyday of his life since he was four, but there’s something about it that catches him off guard every time, something that makes the air flow out of his lungs.

Jughead catches his eye once, and there, under the twinkling bar lights of the Wyrm, he sends Archie the biggest, cheesiest smile that’s ever existed, and Archie feels himself drown in it.

Something about Jughead’s smile makes him feel a little bit invincible.

 

 

 

Archie focuses much less on the first week of his second semester of senior year than he does on making sure he spends as much time with Jughead as possible. Quick kisses goodbye, Jughead falling asleep on his shoulder as they finish a movie, sharing looks at each other during class, leaning by each other’s lockers in hopes of just getting one more second with the other. 

It makes him feel like they’re fourteen again and incredibly close, except this time they’ve finally settled into themselves. They don’t really talk about what it is they’re doing and they don’t really define it, but they both know that it’s what they’ve been slowly working toward for years. It’s like a collapse into bed after a long day, it’s a silent but sturdy,  _of course._

Archie finds that everything in his life is going splendidly, his head is constantly fogged by thoughts of Jughead that flutter his stomach in excitement, and he has no worries in the world.

Until he passes by Veronica and Betty in the halls on Friday that first week of school, and he can’t help but notice the distance between them as they stand next to each other, the sad look on their faces when they don’t think the other is looking, they way both of them radiate longing and sadness and frustration all at the same time.

When he invites Veronica to hang out after school but before the game tonight, she looks sad and lonely in a way he’s never seen on her before.

She sighs and tucks a strand of dark, silky hair behind her ear. “Sure, Archie.”

 

 

 

Archie comes up with a lot of plans that go awry, but he was sure that his plan to hang out with Veronica, to tell her about Betty’s crush on her, and to admit to her what’s happened between him and Jughead since they’ve talked, could not go wrong. 

He is, of course, proven incorrect by the entrance of none other than Hermione Lodge, who swiftly walks into the apartment as he and Veronica are about to have possibly the most important conversation they’ve ever had and she just ruins it. Hermione touches Archie on the cheek, calls him Veronica’s boyfriend, and absolutely spoils everything.

Archie watches out of the corner of his eye as Veronica’s face falls so abruptly it looks like she might cry right then and there, in front of Archie, her mother, and all of Hermione’s guests that she’s brought home to entertain.

When Veronica looks up at him and says, “I think you should go.” Archie knows it’s a bad idea. He knows he shouldn’t leave her alone, but the way she looks at him has him agreeing to do anything for her as long as it might make her feel better.

“I’ll see you at the game, okay?” She asks, but it sounds more like an excuse to comfort Archie. “We’ll talk more later, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Of course.” And then he’s pushed out of the Pembrooke with a sinking feeling somewhere low in his gut.

 

 

 

The cold air prickles the skin on Archie’s arm, and then in the next moment, as he’s running the length of the football field, all the cold seems to dissolve off of him in the face of adrenaline. He’s open but Reggie won’t pass the ball to him. Moose gets it instead, and Archie watches as a guy from the other team, who is small and fast and feisty, zeroes in on Moose. He easily gets taken down and Archie lets out a sigh of frustration that materializes into a puff of white air in front of his face.

As he goes back to position, he chances a look toward the sidelines where Cheryl, Toni, and Betty cheer excitedly with their pom poms and high kicks. His eyes don’t catch on any silhouette that looks like Veronica and he frowns momentarily.

Then he bends his knees and waits for the whistle to blow, and he has to forget about it.

 

 

 

Betty’s waiting for him outside of the boys locker room. She catches him by the arm as he exits and roughly pulls him back to her. She’s still in her cheerleading outfit and her hair is in her classic high pony, but her face looks panicked.

“Archie,” she whispers at him urgently.

Seeing her reminds him of Veronica and thinking of Veronica reminds him that the two of them are still stuck in this limbo of not knowing they like each other back. Archie takes in a big breath as he thinks of the words to say to her.

“Betty,” He replies back, “I’ve actually been meaning to catch you and talk to you. Veronica –”

Betty cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “I know, Veronica likes me! Cheryl told me this afternoon, but – Arch, I can’t find her anywhere.” She looks so worried, her eyes wobble with what might be tears.

Archie’s brows furrow. “She didn’t show up to the game?” He feels the panic he’d been pushing away for the last two hours burrow into his heart.

Betty looks like she wouldn’t hesitate to sucker punch him in the face at that moment. “Do you think I’d be talking to you like this right now if she had showed up to the game?”

Archie flushes red. “Well, uh –”

“What happened when you guys hung out this afternoon?”

“We were at her house and her mom came home, and, um,” Archie pauses, unsure how much information he should reveal to Betty, “Well, Veronica just got mad at her mom and told me to leave. She told me she’d see me here.”

Betty’s face develops a determined expression, like if she thinks hard enough she can telepathically locate Veronica. She looks back up at Archie for a moment. “I’ve tried calling her phone, but I haven’t gotten an answer for the past two hours. I even tried calling Hermione, but I got nothing.” She sighs, defeated. “I thought for sure you would know.”

“Hey,” he says and places a comforting hand on her shoulder, “We’ll find her. Friday night is the perfect night for a goose chase.”

Betty gives him a wobbly smile.

 

 

 

The next morning, as he watches Betty confess to Veronica in Jughead’s trailer and kiss her with all the love she can muster, Archie catches Jughead’s eye and just smiles. Maybe this should be weird for them, but Archie has this strange feeling that all the pieces are falling into the places they should’ve been all along. It’s just taken them a little while to get here.

 

 

 

In the days after, when Veronica sits across from him at a booth in Pop’s and raises a perfectly filled-in eyebrow at him, she says, “Not to bring up a sore subject, but…” she leans forward, “I know there’s something up with you and Jughead.”

Her gaze is cautious and apologetic, like she’s so worried this conversation will end as it did last time: with Archie vehemently denying everything about Jughead, with the two of them fighting and then not talking for weeks.

But instead Archie shrugs and says, “It’s nothing, Ronnie. We’re just talking again. It’s good.”

For some reason, Archie feels this wild, soft need to keep this thing in between him and Jughead. It feels wrong to expose it to the rest of the world, and he just wants to hold onto it for a little while because it’s so good on its own. Anyone else finding out about it would ruin it somehow, would burst their tiny bubble. So much of his life in this town has been information for everybody to know, but he wants this to be different.

He knows he can explain it all to her later, when he’s ready, when he understands where things are going, and he knows she won’t judge him for it. But for right now he can’t. He just can’t.

Veronica takes a sip of her double chocolate milkshake and nods her head. “Well, I’m glad.” She says and drops the subject, but Archie knows she’s not entirely convinced.

He smiles over at her. “I’m glad for  _you,_ ” he says, “B and V, the power couple this town has always needed.”

Veronica laughs at him and Archie is struck by how truly happy she looks. This Veronica isn’t as reserved as the old Veronica he knew, the one who wanted everyone to love her, the one who put up such false pretenses to protect herself. This Veronica laughs without inhibition, smiles without thinking twice, and simply exists without feeling like she shouldn’t.

Archie picks up his milkshake and lifts it in the air. “Cheers?” He asks, raising an eyebrow up at her. 

She smiles at him and picks up her glass. “Cheers.” She says, and they clink their milkshakes together.

 

 

 

They’ve been seeing each other – or whatever – for a few weeks when Jughead abruptly ends another one of their make out sessions with the suggestion of a different activity. 

This is the final red flag for Archie. They don’t kiss anywhere except in private, and even then, they don’t kiss  _that_ much, and he's not sure what's wrong.

Archie sometimes will worry about it so hard for a few minutes that it gives him a headache. He often tries to think back and find things that must have made Jughead uncomfortable, things that Archie must have done to make him want to stop, but he can never pinpoint it exactly.

This time, when Jughead stops kissing him to roll over on the bed and let out a yawn, suggesting that they should go get some food, Archie frowns.

“Is there something wrong?” He asks.

Jughead blinks, confused. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Archie starts, and then scratches his head nervously. “Do you not like kissing me? Am I bad or something?”

Jughead’s face pales like he’s been shot. His eyes dance around Archie’s face frantically for a moment before he closes them and lets out a breath. “Archie…” he says, opening his eyes once more, and then rushes out, “Archie I’m asexual.”

Jughead just stares at him, waiting. “...Okay.” Archie says cautiously.

Jughead’s expression doesn’t change; he stills looks terrified. “It means I’m not attracted to anyone sexually. Like, I don’t experience sexual attraction. Like, I don’t want to have sex with you.”

Archie feels himself deflate. “Oh, okay.” He says, his eyes still searching Jughead’s face. “So…” He trails off, unsure where to go from here or what any of this really means.

“I’m not – I don’t want  _this_ to stop,” Jughead says, gesturing in between the two of them, “I’m just – I don’t want you to have expectations that I can’t meet.”

“But… Betty?” is all Archie can think to ask, stupidly.

“I – yeah,” Jughead says, nodding, “Yeah, Betty and I had sex, and I didn’t love it, but I just thought that – I don’t know – I thought I’d get over it someday. And then I didn’t. And I thought maybe it would be different with you – with guys – but it’s not.”

Archie nods his head slowly. “Okay,” he says.

“I didn’t want her to think I didn’t love her,” Jughead whispers, his stare meticulously scouring over Archie’s face, like he’s a little worried this could be the last time he sees it.

Archie finds his voice somehow. “But – how can you… love someone when you… can’t…” Archie feels, once again, stupid for asking.

“It’s not that I can’t, I just don’t really want to.” Jughead tells him, shrugging into himself. “And romantic attraction is different than sexual attraction. I mean, you can have sex with someone without being in love with them. It works the other way around, too.”

Instead, he just nods at Jughead and goes, “Oh, okay. So, then what about, like, kissing?”

Jughead just looks at him for a moment and smiles. “I like kissing you. Quick kisses. Making out is fine sometimes, but only sometimes. Not a lot.”

"You made out with Betty on New Year's Eve." Archie says cautiously.

Jughead immediately grimaces. "Yeah, she was really drunk and seemed really sad, and I don't know... sometimes it's really easy to fall back into old habits, even if they're bad ones." Jughead shakes his head. "I wasn't going to let it get further than that, anyway. That was around the time that I was fully figuring out the whole asexual thing. I just thought something was wrong with me for a long time."

Archie frowns. "There's nothing wrong with you.” He says, even if he still doesn't completely understand it all. 

This does nothing to alleviate Jughead’s palpable fear. “Listen – if you don’t want to, like, do this anymore now that you know, then that’s fine.”

Archie frowns even deeper. He reaches across to Jughead and takes his hands into his own. “I don’t mind.”

Jughead looks skeptical, embarrassed, and uncomfortable all at the same time. “That’s an easy thing to say now, Arch, but –”

“Hey. If it's you, I don’t mind.” He says and is a little surprised at how he truly means it. He squeezes Jughead’s palms. He goes to lean in for a kiss for a moment before he stops himself.

“Quick kisses.” Jughead reminds him softly with a smile. “I’m okay with quick kisses.”

Archie gives him a weak smile, but doesn’t move any further. Jughead leans across and closes the gap between them for a second, lips touching lips, before he leans back again and shoots Archie with a nervous smile.

Jughead laughs awkwardly. “Now, are we gonna get food? Because I wasn’t kidding about that part.”

 

 

 

Archie will admit to himself that he’s a little afraid it will throw a wrench in things somehow or change them. He’s an idiot to think so. 

Things go on the same as ever. They still argue over movies and they still go on dinner dates to Pop’s where they race to see who can eat two burgers the fastest.  He still kisses Jughead goodnight and they still cuddle under the same blanket when they fall asleep together. If anything, things go  _better_ because they don’t make out anymore and Jughead doesn’t get uncomfortable, sending Archie into a worrying train of thought about whether Jughead actually likes him or not.

Archie’s not going to lie and say that sex isn’t kind of important to him – he’s a bit of a classic eighteen year old boy in that sense – but Jughead’s more important to him, and there’s a lot of things he finds himself not caring about when he’s with Jughead.

It’s good. Things are good.

 

 

 

If Archie has learned anything about Riverdale over all the years he’s lived here, it’s that there’s buttfuck nothing to do here. 

Maybe that had been why when all the murders had occurred, when Mrs. Grundy appeared, when all the absolutely ridiculous shit had happened to them during high school sprang up, they hadn’t shied away from any of it. Instead, it almost felt like they were drawn to it, whether or not they knew.

But now that that’s all done and tied away and they’re all traumatized people for it, they’re still left with a bare shell of a boring, small town.

The most interesting thing the four of them can think to do on a Saturday night in Riverdale is to hang out at the old park in Archie’s and Betty’s neighborhood at midnight.

Archie and Betty swing fast on the swings, Betty’s giggles being lost into the wind as she turns to him and says, “Look, Archie, we’re  _married_.” Wiggling her eyebrows as they swing in sync.

Archie exaggeratedly gives a fluttery sigh. “Oh little Archie,” he mimics in a high-pitched, breathy voice, “Ask me to marry you when we’re eighteen and I’ll say yes.”

Betty laughs so hard she snorts. She attempts to push at him from her swing, her arms and legs aiming for him and just barely hitting. She kicks him in the shins a few times successfully because Archie’s laughing too hard to dodge them properly.

“Hey!” He hears Veronica’s voice shout gruffly from where her and Jughead were goofing around on the play structure. He can just manage to make out her silhouette in the dark. She puts her hands on her hips intimidatingly. “Are you trying to put the moves on my girl?”

Jughead’s laugh crackles throughout the empty, dark park.

“Yeah!” Archie yells back at her and reaches across for Betty’s hand as they swing. “You better watch out!”

Except they’re not swinging in sync so much anymore, and it only takes a couple seconds before Archie’s arm is being dragged in the opposite direction of his body as Betty swings upwards and he swings back. He successfully tumbles out of his seat and lands faces first in the sand below him.

This only causes Jughead to laugh harder, with Betty and Veronica joining in shortly after.

 

 

 

They end up laying on the damp grass of the baseball field, looking up at the stars. Archie faintly hears one cicada out, buzzing for the rest of his friends who have yet to be woken by the faint whispers of spring. 

Jughead’s on his left and Veronica’s on his right, with Betty in between the two of them, completing their circle. Jughead’s shoulder is pressed against Archie’s, and Archie feels more so than hears him breathing. It’s a nice and gentle reminder of Jughead’s existence.

Veronica breaks their comfortable silence by asking, “Do you think there are ants crawling on me right now?”

Archie says, “Ronnie, don’t worry about it,” just as Jughead says, “Oh, definitely.”

“If I were closer to you right now Jones, I would kick you.” Veronica tells Jughead, lifting her head up to look over at him.

“What a shame,” Jughead deadpans, but his act breaks for a second as he looks back at her and gives a smug smile.

Archie hears Betty sigh. “This is nice,” she comments, looking up at the stars, “This is really nice.”

“Yeah,” Jughead quietly agrees, and then looks over at her, a grin already growing on his face. “Do you remember when I taught you the constellations?”

Betty smiles wide. “Of course,” she says and points up to a chunk of the sky, “There’s Ursa Major and there’s Ursa Minor next to it.”

They continue like that for a while, the two of them naming off stars. Jughead corrects her every once in a while when she gets one wrong, but it’s not very often. Betty Cooper is rarely ever wrong with things like this.

Archie feels like a child again, looking up at Jughead and Betty’s fingers as they point all around the black expanse of the universe. He has one of those revelations, the kind you get so often when you’re a kid just becoming aware of everything the world is made up of, when he looks up at the night sky and remembers how there are whole planets of undiscovered terrain up there, stars blinking in and out of existence as their gas burns to an end, an entire space station up there full of regular people just like him.

He feels like he could be anyone in that moment, like maybe he could grow up to be an astronaut on the space station, looking down at earth with big eyes, or like maybe aliens could come down and abduct him in a year or so and he would be able to live out every  _Doctor Who_ fantasy he once had at ten years old.

Archie suddenly wishes he had more time, that they all did, to be all the things they might want to be. There never seems to be enough time.

The four of them fall silent after a while, just breathing and looking up at the stars sleepily. Archie feels a palm slide into his own and he turns to Jughead to smile at him. Jughead’s already looking at him and he smiles back. Archie squeezes Jughead’s hand for a quick second and watches as his grin flourishes into a fond expression around his entire face.

“You guys,” Veronica says quietly, “I think Betty’s fallen asleep.”

“I have not.” Betty insists, but her voices lacks intonation, and when Archie turns to look over at her, he finds her eyelids closed.

“We can go home soon if you want, Betts.” Archie suggests.

Betty yawns and sleepily blinks open her eyes. “No, no. I like it out here with you guys.”

“I like it out here with you guys, too.” Jughead tacks on.

“Wow, it’s almost like we all care about and love each other because were friends,” Veronica says with a teasing grin.

“Don’t put words into my mouth, Lodge.”

“Jughead, you literally just agreed with Betty’s sappy sentiments. You can’t just fight with me because you think it’s fun.”

“I can do whatever I want.” Jughead points out.

“I’ll miss you guys,” Archie blurts out all of a sudden, interrupting Veronica and Jughead’s squabble, “I’ll really, really miss you guys.”

There’s a beat of silence where the only sound is the cicada buzzing steadily in the trees around them before the other three chime in with quiet agreements of, _Yeah, me too,_ or,  _I’ll miss you more._

“I guess you’ll all just have to visit me at Columbia,” Betty suggests, smiling around at them.

Veronica grins, half-sitting up so she can look down at Betty. “My girlfriend is going to an ivy league,” Veronica sing-songs, leaning down to kiss Betty on the lips.

Betty laughs up at her after they part. “Oh, stop it.” She cradles one of Veronica’s cheeks. “ _My_ girlfriend is going to be amazing and successful wherever she goes.”

Archie sees out of the corner of his gaze how Veronica rolls her eyes and then laughs, leaning down to softly peck Betty on the lips one more time.

“You two are gross,” Jughead whines exaggeratedly. It gets him a push and a shove from both girls in between their giggles.

They disperse shortly after that, deciding it’s far too late into the night for the four of them to be laying on the damp grass of the park rather than their beds. They all hug goodbye and couple off, with Betty and Veronica tiptoeing into the Cooper household and Jughead and Archie into the Andrews house.

Jughead and Archie find themselves under Archie’s covers shortly after, mimicking the positions they were in at the park, laying side-by-side each other.

Archie looks up at his dark, shadowy ceiling and feels suddenly exhausted. He listens to Jughead’s steady breathing next to him, concentrating on the rise and fall, the inhale and the exhale. He thinks that everything just sounds so sweet when it comes from someone you love, even if it’s just their breathing.

Jughead rustles in the covers for a moment. He turns over on his side to look at Archie, and Archie, who feels Jughead’s gaze on him like a weight, turns over on his side to match.

Jughead stares at him for a moment in the dark before he says, “In, like, seven months we’re probably going to be somewhere away from each other, dorming in brick rooms with strangers, in an entire school of people and possibilities we don’t know.”

It’s such a Jughead thing to think about at the end of a long night like this when all Archie wants to do is sleep.

Archie sighs into the air. “I don’t want any of that.” He says, thinking mostly about how all he wants is to stay in this moment right now.

Jughead gives a ghost of laugh. “Well, what do you want?” He asks, his eyes shining at Archie in the dark.

And it’s the same fantasy as when they were fifteen, the two of them living in New York somewhere, pursuing their passions with no regard for anything else. Except this time it’s sharing a bed every night, Jughead’s cold feet on his calf. It’s hosting dinner parties with Veronica and Betty, struggling to cook together in their tiny kitchen. It’s making ends meet with Jughead by his side, it’s kissing him under a mistletoe at Christmas, it’s saving up all he has to surprise Jughead with a dinner date at the end of a long week, it’s decorating their apartment together. It’s spending their lives together.

For a moment, Archie almost says,  _I want you,_ but it dies at the bottom of his throat, pushed down by his cowardice back into his stomach. “I want something better than that.” He whispers instead.

He can’t perceive what the expression shift on Jughead’s face means, but he can understand the mutual sadness that’s formed in between the space of their bodies all of a sudden. Like maybe Jughead wants something better than what they’re going to be given too, but hadn’t admitted it to himself just yet.

 

 

 

Spring is full of a lot of good moments. 

Moments where Jughead sleeps in until noon and Archie plays video games in his bed while Jughead snores into his chest. He sleeps for so long that Archie gets bored and wakes him up by loudly strumming his guitar, serenading Jughead. Jughead wakes up grumpy, of course, but Archie thinks he looks so cute with bedhead, trying to worm his way back under the covers as Archie grabs for him, trying to tickle him. They end up falling into each other, giggling, Jughead struggling to breathe as Archie lays on top of him and refuses to move.

Moments at Pop’s where they spend hours in a booth, eating burgers and sipping on their milkshakes. Jughead writes his novel and on the other side of the table, Archie finishes his homework. Sometimes he writes music, but only sometimes, and he never manages to find the courage to show Jughead any of his songs.

Moments where Jughead invites him to Serpent outings and Archie doesn’t feel like an outsider at all. Cheryl always seems endlessly amused that he’s there and following Jughead around like a puppy, and Fangs never fails to greet him excitedly with a hug.

Moments where they’re all at school and Veronica is looking at him from across the student lounge with a soft smile, and Archie can’t help but feel like she can see right through him and knows all the secrets he hasn't told her yet. Betty, on the other hand, hasn’t seemed to notice in the way people like Veronica and Cheryl have, but Archie thinks that might have to do with the fact that she’s so distracted with looking at Veronica that she doesn’t have interest in anything else.

 

 

 

Spring is good, but the night they have The Talk is truly the worst night of Archie’s young life. 

They’re hanging out in the trailer while FP’s out. Archie’s laying out on the couch, his shoes kicked off to the side and his jacket shucked somewhere in the living room. He’s only half paying attention to the infomercial on TV when Jughead comes out from the kitchen and leans against the kitchen door frame.

He clears his throat and Archie looks over at him. He’s looking at his hands when he says, “So, Veronica propositioned me.” His voice is calculated.

Archie raises his eyebrows. “That’s an interesting sentence.”

“Yeah…” Jughead remarks, and then he finally looks up. “It was about college.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She – she asked me if I wanted to move out to California with her.”

This entire plan is news to Archie. “Oh,” he parrots again, this time his voice falling flat.

Jughead rambles on. “Yeah, she’s been having a tough time with college and she was telling me about one of her potential plans to move out to California and go to community college for a bit before she transfers into a bigger school out there.” Jughead’s face is a mixed expression of emotions Archie doesn’t know how to read as he says, “And she asked me if I wanted to come with her.”

Archie doesn’t know what to say, but his mouth goes dry. It’s March and he’s just beginning to get acceptances from schools – and a lot of rejections, too. He’d gotten a few acceptances from state schools last week, all places he’d applied because his counselor told him to, but yesterday he got an acceptance to a university in Oregon with a big, big sports scholarship. Jughead and his dad had bought him a small cake to celebrate. He’s not sure about it, but it’s a good deal, something Archie doesn’t completely hate the idea of.

“The book publishing industry is out here, though.” Archie says weakly. He doesn’t know why that’s what his brain came up with in response.

“Arch, I don’t know how much scholarship money I can get out of the schools here with good writing programs. All that leaves me with is the state school or the community college, both situations where I’d probably still be living  _here.”_ Jughead gestures around to the trailer. “Ronnie offered to help me out financially, like for rent and stuff, as long as I go to classes and get a job. It doesn’t sound so bad.”

“You never take handouts.” Archie says. He doesn’t intend for it to come out so accusatory, but once the words leave Archie’s mouth, they sound like venom.

Jughead narrows his eyes in defense. “It’s – it’s not a  _handout._ It’s an opportunity, Archie, and it’s Veronica we’re talking about here. She’s our friend.”

Archie narrows his eyes right back. “Yeah, when did you guys get so close, anyway?” He asks suspiciously, like this is a bad thing.

Jughead scoffs at him. “When we figured out we actually  _liked_ each other and had just been idiots for the past three years clouded by our grudges against each other. I wasn’t aware that was such a problem for you.”

Archie sighs, stupidly angry at himself and Jughead and this whole thing. “It’s not a  _problem,_ it’s just – I don’t know, what if you’re making a rash decision?”

“I don’t wanna stay in this town forever, Arch. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“We’re eighteen and have no idea what the rest of our lives is going to look like. Any decision I make might as well be a rash decision.” Jughead says. His eyes are glaring daggers into Archie now, like he’s thinking about how long he’ll let this conversation go on before he throws Archie out.

Archie takes in a big breath and sits up. “But what does that mean for us?” He asks.

“What do you mean ‘what does that mean for us?’” Jughead asks right back, almost like he’s offended by the question. He laughs a little; it rings cruel to Archie’s ears. “What did you think was going to happen when we went to college? That I’d just follow you around anywhere, like I’ve been doing for the entirety of my life?”

Jughead spits the words out like they’ve been living inside him for years, just rotting.

Archie flinches back in surprise, his breath caught in his throat. “That’s not –” Archie starts, but his sentence breaks in half like a thick stick of chalk. He wants to murmur into Jughead’s skin,  _I just want to be with you, I just want to be with you, I just want to be with you always, why can’t you see that,_ like the words of a hymn, but Jughead is looking at him like Archie is the cause of all of his problems.

“Maybe you should leave.” Jughead suggests. His posture is so rigid, he looks like he'd break in half if Archie touched him.

His eyes fall to the floor and he turns around without even waiting to hear Archie’s soft reply of, “Yeah.”

 

 

 

Archie gets a call from an unrecognizable number Sunday evening, a few days later.

When he picks it up, he’s met with the gruff voice of Sweet Pea saying, “Andrews, your boy is doing some real damage to his kidneys and I’m gonna need you to take care of it.”

He arrives to the White Wyrm, the first thing he notices is that Sweet Pea is lingering out front, smoking a cigarette. Archie feels his hackles rise up at the site, like he’s bracing himself for whatever Sweet Pea has to say to him. Surely Sweet Pea knows Jughead’s mad at him. Surely all the Serpents do.

Sweet Pea just eyes him disinterestedly as he blows out a stream of smoke. Instead, Sweet Pea just looks at him like,  _Well, are you going to go clean up the mess that you made?_

The speakers have got some old, classic rock song on that the older Serpents seem to be enjoying too much. The floor is sticky with spilled beer and Archie’s converse get uncomfortably stuck on the wood boards every time he takes a step. His eyes search around the bar, past the snake slithering around in it’s glass box, past the pool tables, past the girl at the bar flipping and mixing drinks, trying to find something or someone he might recognize.

Finally his gaze lands on two silhouettes at the other end of the bar. Toni’s got an arm around Jughead’s waist, her tiny frame trying to support his tall, lanky, and currently drunk one. Jughead looks unhappy with his face screwed up in what is either pain or disgust. Toni’s shouting something up at him, but he doesn’t seem to feel the need to respond.

Archie shuffles his way quickly toward them, weaving in and out of the crowded room. When he finally gets close enough to be in eyesight, Toni sees him and waves him over urgently.

She practically pushes Jughead into Archie’s arms once he’s close enough. Her eyes are wide as she leans over to yell at him, “I don’t know what you did, but I’ve never seen him this bad.”

He thought Jughead would throw a fit at seeing him, but Jughead allows himself to be manhandled by Archie easily. He falls into Archie’s grasp. Archie looks at him and is shocked to see a large, yellow and purple bruise on Jughead's cheekbone.

Archie does a sharp intake of breath looking at the bruise forming on Jughead’s skin. “What happened to him?” He asks, looking up at Toni,

Toni grimaces. “The Ghoulies came back, but we finally got them off our back. It just cost a little more blood.” Toni looks at him sympathetically. "Take him outside, yeah?"

Archie thinks at that moment that maybe the world only made him be on the football team for four years in order to be able to carry Jughead through the Friday night crowd at the Wyrm. It’s a very difficult task, not only because Jughead keeps trying to wriggle out of his grasp or the fact that Jughead has seemingly forgotten how to use his two feet in conjunction, but also because Jughead gets stopped by practically everyone they pass. Every girl with a septum piercing and wicked eyeliner, every old geezer with bad beer breath, every Serpent who wants the attention of their boy king, and each time there’s Archie with his arms around Jughead’s waist securely, trying to steer him closer and closer to the door. 

When they finally burst through the bar doors and back outside, Archie gasps for the fresh air like he’s drowning.

Jughead pushes Archie’s arms away from around his waist.  “Archie?” He looks back to Archie confused, and then his gaze narrows into an accusatory glance. “Archie. I thought you were Toni.”

“You  _must_ be smashed if you think Tiny would put in the effort to carry your sorry ass all the way out here.” Sweet Pea chimes in from his place still leaning against the exterior of the building. His cigarettes gone and now he stands with his phone in his hand, like he was aimlessly scrolling through it for a while.

“Hey Pea,” Jughead calls to him weakly.

“Don’t call me ‘Pea.’” Sweet Pea says as he moves over to ruffle Jughead’s hair. The action is a little too rough for Jughead at that moment, and it makes him have to lean on Sweet Pea as he loses his balance and starts feeling nauseous.

“Hey,” Archie says, frowning, “Don’t do that to him.” He wraps his arms securely around Jughead’s waist again, pulling Jughead back against his chest.

Jughead struggles against him. He pushes Archie away and points a finger in his face. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

Archie puts his hands up in the air, his eyes wide at Jughead’s insistence. He feels guilt pool in the bottom of his stomach, and he feels like a fool for coming here when Jughead obviously wants nothing to do with him.

Sweet Pea’s eyebrows shoot up from his place behind Jughead where he’s been watching their interaction, and the expression he gives Archie has Archie thinking,  _Oh God, here we go, finally he’s gonna punch my lights out._

But Sweet Pea just pushes Jughead back in Archie’s general direction. “Go with him, Jones. He’ll take you home.”

Jughead staggers forward and then looks back at Sweet Pea hurt, like Sweet Pea has just shot him. “I’m not gonna have you boss me around.” He slurs as he puts his hands on his hips. Part of Archie wants to laugh at how grumpy he is, and then Jughead tilts a little too far to the left and Archie has to catch him before he completely loses his balance.

The jarring movement stalls Jughead’s thought process for the moment and instead has his clutching onto the hem of Archie’s letterman while dry heaving toward the ground. Archie just supports his weight as he does it and hopes he waits until they get back to the trailer to vomit.

Sweet Pea eyes Archie warily as he takes the last drag of his smoke. “Look,” he says, a little low so Jughead won’t hear. “he likes to think that he can take care of himself all of the time, but he can’t – nobody can. He’s always gonna need someone. He had Betty for a long time, but now it looks like it’s your turn again, and I need you to be there for him.” Sweet Pea's mouth sets into a threatening frown. “He’ll be stubborn about it, but he  _needs_ you, Andrews. So whatever you did, make sure to fix it.”

And with that, he stamps out his cigarette butt and turns to go back inside.

Archie blinks, sucking in a breath. He tries to process what Sweet Pea’s just said.

Jughead chooses this as the appropriate moment to violently throw up on Archie’s shoes.

 

 

 

Jughead wrapped up in a soft blanket with his hair fluffed up and a grumpy frown on his face is the best sight Archie thinks he’s ever seen. As Archie comes out from the kitchen to deliver a steaming mug of tea to Jughead, he looks at the boy and can't help how his heart flutters fondly. The only thing that makes it drop is when Jughead turns to accept the mug and the bruises on his cheekbone come into vision again. The sight of Jughead being hurt makes his stomach drop.

Jughead takes the mug with a muttered, “Thanks.” and then sips on it for a moment. He refuses to meet Archie’s eyes.

He’s definitely more sober than before. After he had vomited onto Archie’s converse, he’d slept the whole drive to his house in Archie’s truck, only to wake when they arrived back at the trailer. He’s certainly quieter and more reserved than he was an hour ago, but Archie doesn’t think he’s completely sober, because if he was, Archie thinks that Jughead would have kicked him out by now.

They sit on the couch in silence for a moment as Jughead drinks his tea. Archie spares a glance over at him and sighs. All he wants to do is wrap Jughead up in his arms and hug him forever and ever to say sorry for all the things he’s ever done, which is a lot, because Archie never seems to get anything between them right anymore. He wishes they could go back to being twelve and innocent, free of worries and responsibilities and the weight of each other mixed with the future.

Jughead takes another sip from the mug. A cicada buzzes outside, another quickly joining in.

“I think you’ll really love it,” Archie says out of nowhere, “California, I mean. I think you’ll like the beaches.”

Jughead finally looks at him for the first time in the past hour, and Archie is surprised at how sad he looks. “Yeah,” Jughead says, his voice raspy.

Silence again. The muffled sound of the radio from FP's room. The buzzing of a fly circling around one of the lights in the kitchen. The humming of the cicadas outside. The distant sounds of music and chatter from the Wyrm that just barely travel far enough in the wind for them to hear from the trailer.

“Can you stay the night?” Jughead asks, his eyes peering over the top of the mug at Archie.

Archie extends the hand that’s already splayed out on the back of the sofa so his fingers lightly brush up against Jughead’s shoulder. “Yeah, of course.”

Jughead puts the mug down on the side table and shuffles closer toward Archie, until he's close enough to wrap his arms around Archie's torso. "Thank you." He whispers into the cotton material of Archie's shirt.

 

 

 

“Pop offered me a job for the summer,” Jughead says while they’re laying in bed the next morning. “It’ll help me save up for California.”

Archie looks over at him as a stream of sunlight lays across the planes of his face. It hits his eyes and make them seem a vibrant hazel. Jughead blinks at him slowly and sleepily, waiting for a reply.

Archie’s gut churns with anxiety at the realness of the situation: that he and Jughead will be apart – truly,  _really_ apart – for the first time in their entire lives. Archie reaches a hand out and brushes back the pieces of Jughead’s dark hair that fall into his eyes.

He smiles at Jughead and hopes it doesn’t come out as wobbly as it feels. “Does that mean I get free milkshakes?”

Jughead laughs, and it’s a wonderful sound until he has to stop because it makes his hangover headache so much worse. “Are you  _using_ me, Archie Andrews?” He asks a moment later once he’s caught his breath.

Archie gasps theatrically. “How dare you? I would  _never_.”

Jughead scrunches his face up and lets out a huff of a laugh. “I’m gonna tell Pop and he’ll have you banned. We’ll put up one of those grainy black and white photos of you where you’ll look ugly – but only kind of ugly, because you’re an Adonis and ugly for you is still beautiful compared to peasants like me who make up the rest of the human race – and you won’t ever be able to walk into Pop’s again.”

Archie blushes and bursts out laughing so hard that his hand stills in Jughead’s hair, unable to keep playing with it because he’s so paralyzed with giggles. “Finally, my time in the limelight has come.” He tells Jughead, a little out of breath.

FP makes his grand entrance by lumbering into the hallway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Archie retracts his hand immediately and Jughead slides away from him under the covers. FP doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, he simply nods and grunts at them, “Boys.” before he starts brewing coffee.

Jughead sighs from the other side of the bed. When Archie looks over, he finds Jughead looks content. He’s still lying under the sunbeam, eyes closed from the blinding light. He looks like an angel, something otherworldly and untouchable.

Archie wants to pull him closer and pepper kisses all over Jughead’s face, but he’s not sure if Jughead would really like that, and FP surely would notice it from the kitchen even if he hasn’t had his coffee yet.

So Archie settles for staring at him for a moment, thinking about how he wants to remember this image years from now.

 

 

 

Veronica fiddles with the radio dial on his truck’s dashboard for five whole minutes before she sighs and gives up, letting it fall on one of the local college stations. They play Backstreet Boys and she tuts in disapproval, but makes no move to try and change it again. 

Archie's truck churns slowly along, making its way up the dirt mountain road. The engine makes noise, struggling a bit, but Archie keeps shifting gears and praying for it to pull through like it’s always done before.

It takes them ten minutes to get up to where Archie wants to be; not quite the top of mountain, but almost there. He pulls his truck off into the dirt shoulder off the road, and it takes only a second after he turns the car off for Veronica hop out excitedly.

They carry out the blanket and bags they brought and stored in the backseat. Archie spreads the blanket out; it’s brown and tattered at the edges from years of wear and tear during father-son camping trips, but it does the job. Veronica crouches down and starts unpacking the bags. She lays out the cheese, the honey, the baguette, the spread of fruit she’d cut up and packaged, the chips, the dip, and seemingly everything else Veronica had in her pantry that's she's brought for them to snack on.

They sit down and Archie realizes could pass out he’s so hungry. “All of this looks so good, Ronnie,” he says.

She smiles over at him as she fixes herself a small sandwich. “What can I say? Throwing a good picnic is one of my best skills.”

It makes him feel like he’s living out a fairy tale moment. Veronica makes him a piece of bread slathered in fancy bread and honey, and he munches on it as the sun sets in front of them. Looking out off of the mountain reveals Riverdale in all it’s smallness, the neighboring farmland that spreads as green, green pastures, and the occasional forest.

It’s a sight unlike anywhere else in the world. He and Veronica had discovered it by accident once, months and months ago when they were first dating. It’s one of the only things that’s leftover from that part of their relationship anymore, but it’s a good one.

They eat mostly in silence, speaking here and there about nothing, Veronica occasionally laughing at Archie’s sorry attempt at spreading cheese, and they watch the sunset. As the sun waves closer to the horizon, Archie thinks about how truly beautiful it is, how much Jughead would probably like to be here to see it. So he takes a picture on his phone – which does a terrible job at actually capturing how amazing the view is – and he sends it off as a text to Jughead.

Archie puts his phone down and sighs, looking over at Veronica who is currently stuffing grapes into her mouth. “I hear you’re taking my boy away from me,” Archie says, but it holds no venom. He knocks his shoulder lightly into hers just so she knows.

“Your boy.” Veronica remarks, looking up at him with a sad smile. There’s a question there, but it’s one she already has the answer to.

Archie shrugs. The soft sadness of summer almost being here is taking him over and she knows, anyway. She’s known the entire time. She knew before him.

She sighs, looking out at the sunset. “I can’t believe he said yes, honestly.”

Archie wants to say,  _me either,_ but it feels in bad taste. Instead, he just breathes out an exhausted, “Yeah.” and then pauses. “What are you and Betty doing about college?” He asks.

Veronica sighs, like she’s a little exhausted too. “Long distance,” she confirms, “I’m not going to finally get it right just to let it slip from my fingers.” She looks over at him cautiously. “What about you and Jughead?” She asks tentatively.

“I don’t think…” he starts, but he’s unsure where he’s trying to go in that sentence. “I think it’s a little different, for us.” He wishes he knew how to put the explosion of emotions in his chest into some great explanation to give Veronica, but Archie's never been good at that sort of thing.

Veronica nods sympathetically. She places a comforting hand on his arm. “It’ll be alright,” she tries, and Archie knows she’s right, but he wishes it was alright already.

They watch the clouds turn cotton candy pink as the sun dips below the horizon, making the sky light up all different types of gold, pink, and eventually dark, dark blue. The view looks like something right out of the old acrylic paintings he used to study in art history that were done at the beginning of America.

He turns to find his water battle and catches sight of Veronica watching the sunset. It reflect brightly in her brown eyes and spills golden yellow over her like ink. “I’m glad I got to experience this place,” Veronica says to him softly, “even if it was just for a little while.”

For some reason, her words overwhelm Archie so much it feels like someone’s just punctured his lung. It feels hard to breathe. “Yeah,” he agrees lamely, his voice giving out.

Veronica falls asleep toward the end of their drive home. Her head lolls against his shoulder, threatening to falls every time Archie takes a particularly sharp turn or curve, but it never does. When he pulls up to the Pembrooke and has to wake her up, she looks at him through sleepy eyes and gives him the warmest hug he thinks he’s ever had. He wants to keep her there for a while, ask this moment in time to stay, ask for the world not to rip them all apart from each other if only for just a little bit longer.

 

 

 

One day when Archie’s on the phone with his mom, she asks him excitedly, “So, who are you going to prom with?” and Archie blanks for a moment, unsure of how to reply. 

He’s sitting on his bed, his back against the wall, and Jughead is sitting diagonal of him, facing the TV and trying to finish  _Ocarina of Time_. His legs are splayed across Archie’s and he’s got the tip of his tongue stuck out in concentration like some sort of cartoon character. 

“Uh, I don’t think anyone,” he tells her, eyeing Jughead, “But Jughead and I will probably go together in the same car.”

He watches Jughead’s face screw up in amusement at the phrase,  _together in the same car ,_ and he sends a goofy smile at Archie.

He can hear his mom’s smile through the phone. “I’m glad you’re still friends with him, Archie. Good friends like that will last you until the end of time.”

Archie feels like Mary got that quote off of her Facebook timeline, but he loves her for it. “I know, Mom.”

He moves up to cuddle Jughead after he hangs up on his mom. He fits his head snugly under Jughead’s chin as he buries his face partly in Jughead’s neck. “Is this okay?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Jughead says idly; he sounds like he’s more focused on the video game. Archie feels the movements from his arm furiously mashing buttons. Archie watches out of the corner of his eye how Jughead vanquishes the evil plants that are attacking Link and then steers him into the next room. “Together in the same car, huh?” Jughead asks afterward, a small smile on his face.

“What?” Archie groans. “We are! You literally hassled me yesterday about making sure I was your ride to prom.”

“When I tell people my relationship to you, I’ll just be like, ‘Oh, we carpool together, you know?’”

Archie hits him in the stomach and Jughead recoils as he laughs. “I hope you know that you’re not funny.”

Jughead turns his head to kiss Archie on the forehead. It misses and lands somewhere in his hair instead. “For the record, you’re my favorite carpool buddy.”

The comment warms Archie inside like a slow burning fire, but he lets it stew inside his stomach, smiling to himself as he presses his face further into Jughead’s skin. “I know.” He says, and he does.

 

 

 

Toni and Cheryl win prom queens, of course, and the shine of their crowns can’t even compare to how bright their smiles are. Betty and Veronica, Kevin and Fangs, and then Ethel Muggs and Dilton Doiley – Riverdale’s cutest new couple –  stand behind them on the stage as the rest of Prom Court and applaud them. 

This win doesn’t surprise anyone, except apparently Reggie, who Archie hears go, “Bro, when did everyone we know turn gay?” to someone in their vicinity as they stand in the crowd and watch the crowning.

Jughead turns to him and sighs. “Oh Mantle,” he says and claps Reggie on the back.

“What?” Reggie asks, alarmed. He looks at Jughead and then around at everyone else. “What? What’d I do?”

 

 

 

Betty finds him on the dancefloor afterward. She’s wearing a sash that says “Prom Court” and they’ve given her a single rose that she’s cut short and tucked behind her ear. She comes up to him and asks, “Can we dance?” into his ear and over the music. 

Archie pulls back, a little surprised, but says, “Sure.”

She’s wearing a spectacular dress. It’s silver, long, and wraps around her very nicely, showing off her legs with a high slit on the side. It’s not the kind of dress he’d ever pictured her wearing, but seeing her in it now, it seems to make sense. He puts his hands on her waist and she circles hers around his neck, and they sway together, slowly. She smells like cinnamon, vanilla, and familiarity.

She looks up at him, her eyes full of so many things he’s never been able to decipher, and she says, “Can I ask you something random?” He nods. “Are you happy?”

The question takes him aback for a moment, mostly because he hadn’t been expecting it, but also because after a moment of consideration, he’s surprised at the answer.

He looks back down at her and answers with as much honesty as he can muster, “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” He thinks not only of his months with Jughead, of how many days he got to spend holding Jughead’s hand or waking up in the morning in the same bed as him, but also the months he’s spent with Betty and Veronica, watching them be so happy together, and the months he’s spent in this town with all these people he loves. “Are  _you_ happy?”

The way her face transforms into a smile has his knees weak with how genuine it is. It’s a good old Betty Cooper smile. “I am,” she says softly, nodding her head in affirmation, “I really am, Arch.”

He thinks about the two of them at fifteen, so lost and so chaotically disconnected, and he thinks if their old selves could see what it’s like now they’d be happy, too. Surprised maybe, but happy.

“Did you ever think we’d end up here?” He asks.

“What do you mean ‘here?’” She asks, tilting her head up at him thoughtfully, but then she answers her own question before he can. “I always wished I would end up dancing with you at prom, wearing a Prom Court sash, and feeling like a million bucks, but I never thought that at the end of the day that it wouldn’t be you who I’m wearing a matching corsage with.” She laughs.

“Maybe somewhere out there in a different universe, there’s a me and you who won Prom King and Queen.” Archie tells her.

Betty rolls her eyes. “Who are dating each other and probably going to the same university because they feel like they have to. Who will end up back in this town just like our parents. Who are probably the most _boring_ people in the world.” Betty’s face scrunches up in amused discomfort and Archie laughs at her words, knowing how scarily true they actually could be. She leans in closer to Archie so he can hear her say, “I’m glad I’m not that Betty and I’m glad you’re not that Archie.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Archie accidentally catches sight of Jughead across the room. He’s holding a drink in his hand and his beanie is haphazardly tilted on his messy hair, looking like it’s about to fall off. He’s watching Betty and Archie dance with a tight expression on his face.

Archie catches his eye and Jughead’s face relaxes, his shoulders slump back, and he reveals nervousness about himself. Archie smiles at him for a flash of a second, watching how Jughead slowly smiles back at him and waves, and then Archie looks back down at Betty.

“I’m glad too,” he tells her, and they beam at each other for a moment before she leans up to kiss him on the cheek as the song ends.

 

 

 

“Are you happy with the choices you’ve made?” Jughead asks him quietly as they sit in the flatbed of Archie’s truck. 

He’s curled up underneath Archie’s arm, dressed down to his undershirt and his suspenders hanging around his waist. Archie looks down at him, shifting the blanket so it covers farther up their bodies as the night gets a little colder around them.

Archie’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you feel fulfilled?” Jughead’s eyes nervously glance around Archie’s face. “Do you feel disappointed at all?”

Archie knows it’s his way of asking,  _Do you wish I’d been somebody else? Do you wish it had been Betty or Veronica or Valerie or –_

“Why would I feel disappointed?” Archie asks, looking at Jughead like it’s the most ridiculous suggestion he’s ever made. “I’m laying under the stars with a cute boy, drinking terrible beer, after we’ve been to prom and watched a couple of our best friends win prom court. Isn’t that the kind of thing people write books about?”

Jughead immediately flushes at the phrase ‘cute boy’ and he squirms under Archie’s arms, sitting the upper half of his body up with the help of his forearms. “Usually bad ones.”

Archie pouts. “You’re just a snob. I like those kind of books, and I like you.”

Jughead huffs a laugh. “Archie, you hate reading.”

Archie pouts even further. “I’m trying to be nice and romantic and you keep tearing me down.“ Maybe he’s kind of drunk.

Jughead smiles at him. “Someone’s gotta do it.” He looks pretty, even in the dark. Archie reaches out a hand to tuck some of Jughead’s hair behind his ear, but it falls right back into Jughead’s face after Archie does it.

Jughead chuckles at the frown on Archie’s face and leans forward to briefly kiss it away. Archie sighs into Jughead’s mouth and weaves his fingers through the locks of Jughead’s hair. He hopes he doesn’t only taste like beer and cold prom pizza, but he knows deep down in his heart that he does.

They pull away from each other and Jughead looks straight out of a classical painting, illuminated by the moonlight and the stars from behind. Archie looks up at him, his heart melting, and whispers, “Hey. I’ll never regret you. Not in a million years, Jug.”

It’s enough to have something inside of Jughead break. His face falls for a moment before he buries it into the crook of Archie’s neck, wrapping his arms around Archie as much as he can laying down.

Archie simply tugs the fluffy blanket up and over them even more and rubs a steady hand up and down Jughead’s back, kissing him on the temple once, then twice, then three times more, just because he can.

 

 

 

Archie’s mom, Jellybean, Gladys, Polly and the twins, and essentially Veronica’s entire extended family come into town for graduation. It’s a very stressful time for everyone, to say the least, and Riverdale is packed to the brim of people. 

“I think I’m going to have a heart attack.” Veronica tells Archie one day as they walk to Government together. “I’m going to die before I even get to leave high school and experience the wiles of the world.”

Archie puts a supportive hand on her shoulder. She deflates under it. “Ronnie, it’ll be fine.”

“Oh, shut up, Archie,” she snaps, and then sighs, “I mean, I’m not worried for Betty to meet my family or anything because she’s great and I’d never be ashamed of her in any world, but my family is…”

“Ruthless?” He finishes for her, fondly remembering his time as Veronica's boyfriend during her confirmation.

Veronica gives him a dirty look, like she finds his suggestion unhelpful, but she relents, “I’m just worried.”

“It’ll be fine.” He assures her again, just before they go to class.

It does go swimmingly, by the way, this is Betty Cooper we’re talking about after all. This doesn’t stop Veronica from calling Archie before it happens and stress crying, though. When Archie assures her how great it will go, she snaps at him. She texts him an apology about an hour or two later, full of heart emojis and then followed by a message that says,  _it went great btw lol. never doubt elizabeth cooper._

When Archie sees JB and Gladys for the first time in years, it’s by accident. He shows up to the Jones trailer, ready to pick Jughead up for their weekly Pop’s dinner where they eat, finish important work on their laptops, and take turns staring lovingly at each other while the other’s not looking.

When he knocks on the door, it opens to someone considerably shorter than Jughead. Archie shifts his gaze down and finds a thirteen year old girl with half a shaved head and freckles for miles. Her eyes light up upon seeing Archie.

“Archie!” She calls and laughs maniacally before rushing toward him and jumping onto him for a hug.

Archie lets out an unexpected, “Oof!” but quickly adjusts for her weight and wraps her back in a hug. “Hey, JB.” He’s able to squeeze out.

“Archie?” A gentle voice calls from inside, and out comes Gladys. She stands in the doorframe, smiling softly at the sight before her and chuckling. Her black hair is done up in a bun and she has a subtle pink lipstick on. Archie looks at her and realizes how different she is than how he remembers her. She definitely looks more exhausted, and there are more prominent crow’s feet by her eyes, but he’s glad she stills carries her gentleness with her.

After Jellybean lets Archie out of his hug constraints, he goes to hug and greet Gladys, who is certainly pleased to see him. Jellybean is at his side the whole time, talking a mile-a-minute about things he can’t keep up with.

“Jellybean,” Jughead reprimands out to her from his place in the kitchen. “You have to calm down.”

Jellybean just sticks her tongue out at him. “You’re no fun.” She says and then hits Archie on the arm kind of hard. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with him for years.” She tells Archie.

Archie rubs at the place of injury on his arm and laughs awkwardly. “I’d say he’s pretty cool.” Then he ruffles her hair. “What’s this?” He asks

Jellybean smiles at him all of a sudden and laughs. She gestures to herself. “This is called an undercut, Archibald.” She says, and for a moment Archie is struck by how much she sounds like Jughead. Then she smiles up at him all teeth and giggles and the illusion breaks. “I did it myself. Do you like it? Jughead  _hates_ it.”

“I never said that!” Jughead attests from the kitchen. He walks toward the door frame. “I just think you did a poor job with the razor.”

Archie peers around the shaved side of her head and finds little inconsistent divots and tufts of hair. He’s not wrong, but Archie smiles down at Jellybean and says, “Well I think it’s nice, JB.”

JB grins at him. Jughead rolls his eyes and turns back around into the kitchen. He calls back to Archie, “You’re such a kiss ass.”

 

 

 

When Gladys asks him if he’d like to join them for dinner that night, Jellybean practically begs for him to stay, and there’s no way he can say no. Jughead smiles over at him sheepishly and mouths, _Sorry,_ but it’s not like Archie has other plans, anyway. 

FP makes a poor excuse of a fettuccine, but Gladys makes the salad and that’s good enough to hold them off as they soldier through creamy cheese sauce and tender noodles. Sitting around the table, watching the way Jellybean and Jughead kick each other under the table, the way FP ruffles Jughead’s hair, the way Gladys smiles at all of them through mouthfuls of food like she couldn’t be happier to be here, it makes Archie grateful to have people who add so much to his life like this, who will invite him to dinner and have it be wonderful even after years of not seeing each other.

Jellybean pulls him to the side later, after they’re done with dinner and the two of them are walking across the trailer park to take out the trash. She stops him in the chilly night of Sunnyside, right next to the smelly garbage bins.

He can just make out the way her eyes narrow at him in the dark. “Are you Jughead’s boyfriend?” She asks immediately, putting her hands on her hips.

The question catches Archie so off guard all he can manage is, “Wha –”

“‘Cause you guys really had some intense heart eyes going throughout dinner.” She crosses her arms and huffs. “He never tells me anything about his life, so I have to do detective work. You’re one of my suspects, possibly the biggest suspect of them all.”

Archie laughs at her. “What crime am I being suspected of?”

Jellybean wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “You’re a culprit of  _lo-ove.”_ She sings.

It has Archie laughing even harder. He leans over and ruffles her hair, much to her annoyance. “Aren’t you, like, twelve? JB, how do you know anything about love?”

She gives him the most offended look. “I’m thirteen, Archie,” she tells him patronizingly, and there she goes again, sounding exactly like Jughead. “And are you his boyfriend or not?” She asks, walking toward him like she’s trying to be intimidating.

Archie smiles at her, endeared. “No,” he says, shaking his head, “I’m not your brother’s… boyfriend.”

Jellybean cups her ear with the palm of one hand. “Oh? Was that hesitance I heard?”

Archie rolls his eyes and moves to walk back to the trailer. “Jellybean, come on.”

She steps in front of him quickly and sticks her face in his personal space. “It’s a simple question, Archibald, either you are or you aren’t.”

“What happened to when you were eight and worshiped the ground I walked on?” Archie asks her, moving around her easily with one broad step.

She rushes to catch up to him. “I just find it  _suspicious_ that it seems like you guys weren’t hanging out when he was dating Betty, and now since they’ve broken up, all Jughead seems to do is hang out with  _you._ ”

Archie rolls his eyes again, finding himself actually getting a little annoyed at this conversation and the fact that he isn’t Jughead’s boyfriend, that he  _can’t_ be. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jelly.”

“Hm,” he hears her ponder behind him as they step back up into the trailer, “We’ll talk again soon, Andrews.”

Jughead flocks to them immediately as they walk into the kitchen, almost like he’s nervous. “What are you saying to him?” He asks Jellybean, looking at her cautiously.

“That you’re ugly and unlikable and will never find love.” Jellybean tells him easily before she hops on over to her father.

“Wow,” Archie comments as they watch her go help FP dry the dishes, “She’s feisty, huh?”

Jughead rolls his eyes. “She’s been driving me nuts,” he deadpans, but then his gaze moves over to her once more and his face softens, “But it’s nice to have her here, you know?”

Archie nudges his shoulder and they share a private smile. Jughead’s always been a great big brother, even when the two halves of his family live miles apart. “I know.”

They play a round of Uno afterward where Jellybean crushes them all. FP claps her on the shoulder and says, “That’s my girl,” and Archie doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jellybean smile so wide.

 

 

 

On the day of graduation, Archie figures out that his gown is just one size too small, because of course Riverdale High School couldn’t let him leave without one last attempt at killing him in some way. He must have washed it wrong, because it’s so short it shows off his hairy ankles like they’re something to be looked at. It makes not only Jughead laugh when he sees Archie, but also Betty and Veronica. 

“Oh, Archie,” Betty says both sympathetically and secretly amused, bending down to roll up his socks for him, “Why don’t we do this instead.” She suggests, covering his bare ankles.

Veronica already has her phone out though, and she’s taking a video, zooming in on his feet. “Are you kidding me? Betty, you can’t keep Archie from making the fashion statement of the century.”

“It kind of makes you look like a man-child.” Jughead suggests, tugging on the way Archie’s sleeves are so short they barely hit the middle of his forearm.

Archie guffaws. “It doesn’t look that bad, right?” He looks at Veronica, who just laughs at him, her cap’s golden tassel swinging back and forth with the movement.

 

 

 

Betty is valedictorian, which shocks no one. She doesn’t even seem nervous as she steps onto the stage after being welcomed by Weatherbee. She looks down at the papers collected in her hands and straightens them against the podium before she clears her throat and looks up at the audience. 

She smiles out at the crowd, her lips painted with a simple pink that stands out against her blue gown. For a quick second, her eyes find Archie’s in the crowd. He gives her a thumbs up, and she smiles even wider before she opens her mouth and goes on a spiel about her four years here at Riverdale High and what they’ve meant to her.

What do you say about a town that has tragedy running so deep through it’s blood that it leaks onto everyone? What do you say about a high school experience that has left you gasping for breath, traumatized and changed more than any average kid ever should be by the age of eighteen?

You talk about the moments in between, the long nights at Pop’s, the feeling of becoming a cheerleader for the first time, the moment when your enemy become your friend and also turns out to be your cousin (This gets a good laugh out of the crowd, and an especially loud one from Cheryl sitting in the audience.) You talk about perseverance and determination and, most of all, survival. You talk about what family means and what love looks like and the way these things so often come about in your life by wild, wonderful chance. And you talk about Pop Tate’s milkshakes and how vanilla is the best flavor, obviously.

Archie has always thought of Betty as the bravest one out of all of them. Although this is not strictly true, seeing her standing on that stage, in front of more than half the town, talking about recovery and love and safety so simply, as though they are not things she’s had to fight tooth and nail in order to claim, Archie thinks Betty has more courage in her body than he could ever learn how to muster.

He cries at the end of her speech like a big baby. He cries because of Betty and her words, but also he cries because the past four years have been so  _long,_ and there were so many terrifying moments where he really, truly thought that he would never make it here. That none of them would.

But he did and they all did, and when the four of them meet up afterward on the field to take pictures as now graduated high school students, he notices that practically all of them have red-rimmed eyes or have to sniffle in between their words.

 

 

 

Archie does end up looking like a man-child in all of the photos. When he stands next to Betty, Veronica, and Jughead, it becomes very obvious that Archie’s gown looks a little off compared to all of them.

“It’s not the worst thing in the world.” Betty offers, trying to make Archie feel better as they review the pictures his mom took on his phone.

“We’ll photoshop it, honey.” Archie’s mom tells him with a kind smile and a supportive wink.

“Are my hairy ankles  _that_ offensive to everybody?” Archie asks.

“As someone who dated you once, yes.” Veronica tells him, and then she points to a photo on Archie’s phone. “Delete that one, my cheekbone highlight isn’t shining bright enough.”

 

 

 

Fred Andrews, ever the good host and all-around stand up guy, volunteers to have a barbecue at their house afterward and invites practically everyone they know, which happens to be most of the town. 

Archie’s house is full of people, familiar faces he’s known for years, and the smell of smoke and burger patties. FP and Fred are tag teaming the grill, flipping over hamburgers and hot dogs, plating and handing them out to anyone passing by, and Alice, Hermione, and Mary are making the rounds with drinks and conversation. Gladys hovers somewhere in the back, unsure of her place here, but seemingly grateful to be here all the same. Occasionally Jughead will go and check on her, and Archie always sees out of the corner of his eye the way she smiles at her son proudly and pulls him in for a kiss on the forehead.

Archie watches all of this happen idly while chewing his burger, sitting on the other side of the yard. Jughead walks back from checking on his mom and plops down in his chair next to Archie. Sweet Pea and the rest of the Serpents hover over him, and they quickly engage in a conversation that solely consists of marveling at how FP has managed to turn into the perfect suburban dad in the span of this barbecue, and how that scares all of them – even Jughead – for reasons they don’t understand.

Jellybean is on the other side of Archie. She’s attached herself to Vegas like she’ll die if they ever part. Vegas, who’s starting to turn old and wheezy, simply sits at her feet as she pats him lovingly. He keeps eyeing her hot dog, though, and Archie’s a little worried that he’s going to nip it out of her hands.

His worry is vanished by a gentle touch on his shoulder. He looks over to find Jughead smiling at him. There’s a little mustard around his mouth and without thinking about it, Archie reaches over with his thumb and swipes it away. He leaves his hand there for a moment, cradling Jughead’s cheek. Jughead seems amused by Archie’s heart eyes and smiles at him, leaning his cheek to rest in the palm of Archie’s hand.

“Jug,” Fangs calls out to him, “Jug, Jug, Juggie.”

Archie quickly retreats his palm, pulled out of the moment, and Jughead twists his body back around to face Fangs and everybody else. He hears Jughead asks,  _Yes?,_ and Archie detects an edge to his voice like a lilt of annoyance.

Archie only has time to take one bite of his burger before Jellybean’s kicking him in the shin. He looks over to find her staring at him, her eyebrows raised. She looks softly curious more than anything else.

She leans in close to him so only he can hear her. “I think this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you I’ll beat you up if you break his heart, but I think you know that already.”

The conversation makes Archie a little nervous, but he gives her the best smile he can. “I know better than to mess with you, Jelly.”

She giggles at him, still using her other hand to pat Vegas. Her face falls and turns serious for a moment then. She looks around at the people near them, like she’s worried they’ll hear, and then back toward him. “I won’t tell anyone.” She says.

Archie loves her for it, but for a second, he can’t shake the thought that he almost wishes she would. He almost wishes she would take that responsibility off of him and write out their poorly kept secret for the world to know.

What’s between him and Jughead is something they’ve never fully discussed in words, it’s something they’ve only implied to each other, over and over through whispers and quiet looks among other things. It’s something Archie never has the courage to speak or ask about out loud. It’s something he’s so worried will vanish if he pokes and prods at it too hard.

He wishes someone would turn to him and put it into words for him. He wishes someone would tell him what he and Jughead look like together.

Archie just smiles over at her and takes the opportunity to ruffle her hair, even though she cries out against it. “Thanks, JB.”

She scrunches her face up and laughs happily, pushing his hand away from her. She combs her hand through her hair, trying to get it to retain some of its original shape before Archie had needlessly messed with it.

He looks over at her, at the trail of freckles across her face, at the way her eyes sparkle with the same danger that Jughead’s does, and he can’t believe she’s so old now. He can’t believe that in five years, he will probably be at an after graduation barbecue party for Jellybean’s graduation. He’ll be twenty-three by then; this thought practically ages Archie on the spot.

Veronica finds him soon after, forcing him to down the rest of his burger and get up and dance with her. The speakers are playing mindless pop songs that are easy to sway your hips to and Archie finds himself laughing wildly as Veronica and Betty dance in circles around him, Jughead smiling at all of them from his place still in his chair.

 

 

 

Summer comes to Archie as fuzzy vignettes of time. 

Summer is the rushing current of Sweetwater. Summer is movie nights with Betty and Veronica. Summer is chocolate drizzled popcorn and the musty taste of the old beers in Archie’s fridge that they drink. Summer is the four of them in Betty’s car, screaming out lyrics to pop punk songs they listened to at thirteen. Summer is Veronica and him doing face masks at three in the morning. Summer is the flash of Betty’s baby blue polaroid. Summer is Sweet Pea drunkenly yelling around a bonfire, Fangs next to him following suit for a moment until he excites himself so much that he throws up. Summer is Toni’s hair tied up in a red bandanna, her laughing excitedly as she beats Jughead in an arm wrestle. Summer is Cheryl on the stage of the White Wyrm, singing the words to an old 90s song Archie doesn’t remember as her hips sway to the music. Summer is Kevin and Josie throwing a ridiculous house party that none of them remember the next morning.

Summer is over salted french fries and Jughead’s Pop’s uniform, his badge that is always pinned slightly askew. Summer is laying in bed with Jughead, all the covers thrown off of them and the fan turned on all the way. Summer is the soft sighs of sleep that Jughead lets out as he snuggles into Archie. Summer is Jughead always falling asleep first, Archie’s arm around his waist.

Summer is Jughead looking small in Archie’s hoodies. Summer is Jughead’s knee pressed against his in the backseat of Betty’s car. Summer is the small smile he shoots across at Archie every time Archie does something he thinks is cute. Summer is the smell of Jughead’s shampoo. Summer is the way Jughead wraps his arms around Archie so tightly when they hug.

Summer is the lingering thought of absence. Summer is the impending doom of what has to come. Summer is them getting to be kids for one last time.

 

 

 

Archie’s the first one who has to leave for school in August, and he wonders how you’re supposed to end things like this. 

He’s decided to take the sports scholarship to the state school in Oregon and go in as a freshman undecided. Part of him still wants to major in music, but every time he has that thought, he shoots a look at the guitar in the corner of his room that’s been gaining dust for months and sighs. He still packs it up to bring to college, though.

Archie spends his last night in Riverdale going to a end of the summer bash Cheryl has. It’s a quiet gathering, full of only the people from their class that they really know. Jughead hovers by Archie’s side the whole night with a somber expression on his face that Archie can’t seem to shake out of him, and Veronica keeps shooting them both looks of worry. It’s an unavoidable sadness, but it still weighs them down.

Reggie tears up a little as he hugs Archie at the end of the night. “You always played a good game, bro.” He tells Archie, clapping him on the shoulders as they pull back.

Archie swears he sees Jughead roll his eyes and mutter, “What does that even mean?” to Betty in the background.

Saying goodbye to everyone doesn’t feel quite real. There are murmurs of,  _We’ll see each other next summer,_ and,  _It’s not the end, we’ll all keep in contact,_ but they seem like idle words spoken only to fill in the gaps of silence that no one knows what to do with. Archie finds it all hard to breath through.

Jughead stays with him for one last night, cuddled up Archie’s bed, under the covers. His bedroom looks ugly with everything packed up in boxes and suitcases and when most of his posters and knick knacks have been taken down and put away, either in storage or to be taken to college. Archie has to wake up early for his flight tomorrow morning and so they shut the lights off early into the night, but Archie finds himself laying awake for hours in the darkness. His head is cushioned on Jughead’s chest, and the only thing that keeps him sane is the steady movement of Jughead’s chest moving up and down with his breathing and the rhythmic beating of his heart.

He assumes Jughead falls asleep shortly after they get into bed and that the occasional movements of his hand trailing up and down Archie’s back or the small shifting of his position is just him shuffling in his sleep.

But then a moment comes when Archie has been awake for what feels like forever and he hears Jughead whisper out of nowhere, “I love you,” into the dark of the room, as though he’s sure Archie’s too asleep to hear it. His voice sounds so small and so sad, like he’s fighting against something that’s a lost cause.

It makes Archie full body freeze, makes his breath catch in his throat. He feels his heartbeat thrum throughout his entire body.

Jughead presses his lips to Archie’s forehead gently, and then lays his head back down with a sigh.

Archie lays there for hours and hours and hours, his gut churning with anxiety and feelings of sadness that hurt so bad, he thinks he won't be able to survive it.

 

 

 

The four of them stand awkwardly in a circle outside of Archie’s house the next morning, when it is much too early for any of them to ever be awake. His flight is in three hours, but Fred wants to be there early. Archie feels exhausted in all senses of the word. 

Veronica is the one who breaks first. Her wobbly smile turns into tears that slip down her cheeks easily, and then suddenly she’s laughing. “This is ridiculous,” she sniffs.

She rushes toward Archie and wraps her arms around his neck. He hugs her back immediately and he feels the dampness of her tears in the crook of his neck.

“It’ll be fine,” she says when they pull back, “We’ll visit you, and we’ll keep in contact, and it’ll be fine.” She fans at her face with her hand. Betty’s arm wraps around her waist comfortingly, but Betty looks just as defeated as she does.

Archie smiles over at her sadly. “It’ll be fine,” he agrees, but his voice is a little too thick with emotion to sound calm. Veronica smiles sadly at him and he feels his eyes start to sting.

Betty hugs him next. She swoops in with a soft but firm squeeze and he’s shocked at how familiar someone’s grasp can be. She sighs against his shoulder and he leans against her.

“I love you, Arch.” She tells him.

“I love you too, Betty.” He says, but when they pull apart, he wishes he knew how to say more. He wishes he knew how to vocalize the gratefulness in his chest, all the love that feels like it could kill him at this moment in time.

Archie hesitantly brings his gaze over to Jughead, who’s staring at Archie with a frown firmly on his face. Archie recognizes it as what Jughead does when he’s trying not to cry. Some part of him wishes that Betty and Veronica weren’t here so that when he and Jughead say goodbye, it would be the real thing, not the two of them playing out the parts they’ve made for themselves.

They hug for a good beat longer than Archie had hugged Betty or Veronica. Jughead wraps his arms around Archie’s neck, one of his hands finding its way into the hair at the back of Archie’s head. Archie winds his arms around Jughead’s back securely, and Archie tries to hug him hard enough like he can transfer all of his love and all of his reluctance to go to Jughead without having to say it. He wants to squeeze it out.

Jughead’s cheek is pressed firmly against his own cheek. Archie feels the subtle drag of his stubble on Jughead’s skin as he shifts.

For a moment, Jughead’s hand tightens in his hair so hard that it almost hurts, and he clutches the back of the collar of Archie’s shirt, bunching it in his fist for a second, but then his touch is gone. Then Jughead is stepping away from him, his face openly distraught, and suddenly there’s a space in between them that will be there for however long until they see each other again.

“Don’t forget to call.” Jughead tells him weakly.

“I won't.” Archie says softly, so soft his voice might as well be a whisper.

As Archie looks across at Jughead, he selfishly wishes that they could kiss one last time, and for a second, he thinks about how much it wouldn’t matter, how it’s only Betty and Veronica who are watching, how it would be worth it just to do it, how  _sad_ Jughead is looking at him, how sad Archie feels inside, how –

“Archie!” His dad calls as he saunters down to the sidewalk, “Are you ready, kiddo?”

Archie’s voice cracks as he says, “Yeah,” and he looks at Jughead for one last, long moment, before he looks around at all of them and tries a smile. “So this is it, I guess.”

Betty gives a watery laugh that comes out probably much sadder than she intended. Veronica wipes at her nose, still sniffling. Jughead just looks at Archie, his face an emotional wreck that betrays his silence.

He lets out a breath and smiles wide this time. He opens his arms wide. “Come on, guys.”

They all huddle together for a group hug. They squeeze each other hard, letting out a few weak giggles in between, even Jughead, and then they let go.

And then Archie gets into the passenger seat of the truck. He rolls down the window to say goodbye one last time, and they echo it back to him from the sidewalk, Betty and Veronica holding each other, Jughead slumped into himself. Archie gets one last look of the house he grew up in before his dad pulls away from the curb and they start the drive to the airport.

 

 

 

The hurt sets in right as they leave, right as Archie watches Jughead fade into a silhouette on the horizon with finality.

If he could attempt describe what it feels like, he’d say it’s most like someone's taken a cookie cutter to his gut and cut a hole in him. It’s not huge, but it hurts and throbs, and every time they drive a mile further, it feels more and more like he could suffocate. He knows it’s because he’s not whole, and he knows there’s nothing he can do about it anymore.

 

 

 

These are the last things Archie sees from his little hometown of Riverdale:

The suburban streets that wind around parks and backyards with people walking their dogs happily on the sidewalks, laughing with each other, each on their own way to somewhere they might call home.

A last look at the Pembrooke for a moment as they’re stopped in traffic down on main street. He looks up at what he guesses is Veronica’s window and thinks about all the ways her arrival in Riverdale changed his life in the best of ways. The Archie he is now wouldn’t exist without her.

Pop’s, of course, which reminds him of so many things and so many nights, new and old, but in that moment he thinks of Betty dressed in pink and with a cherry stem between her teeth, giggling back in a time where they had no worries in the world.

The town sign passing quickly by out his passenger window, recently repainted and touched up, boasting to him about how it’s the “Town with PEP!” He’d always thought it was the stupidest slogan, probably made up by one of Cheryl’s great great great grandfathers at the beginning of Riverdale’s formation, but seeing it go by in a flash out of the car makes his gut tighten with sadness.

A couple of boys, dressed only in swim trunks with striped towels hanging around their necks, walking across the terrain of forest you have to go through in order to get down to the river. One boy, funnily enough, looks to have red hair in the sunlight, and he smiles toothily back at the freckled boy behind him.

Archie sighs.

 

 

 

They’re thirteen and Archie wakes up from a nightmare, once. 

He shoots up and out of his sleep, sitting up in his bed with the covers pooling around his hips. He’s covered in a layer of sweat that makes him feel so gross and he can’t stop breathing heavily.

This wakes Jughead, who rouses from the mattress on the floor and fumbles to get up.

“What?” He’s whispering urgently. “What is it?” They’re both right in the middle of puberty, so Jughead’s voice happily cracks in the middle of his words. It’s something Archie would usually tease him for.

Jughead’s arms are reaching out for Archie in the dark, and when he finally hits the other boy’s shoulder, he moves to sit on the edge of Archie’s bed. Archie feels more than sees Jughead’s gaze on him. His eyes are still getting used to the dark; he can barely make out Jughead’s silhouette.

Archie suddenly feels embarrassed. He wishes he could brush it off and that they could go back to bed. “It’s nothing,” Archie whispers back, “I just had a bad dream.”

“What was it about?” Jughead asks, tilting his head to the side, ready and willing to listen.

Archie swallows, wishing he had water all of a sudden. “I don’t even remember,” he says, but he does remember the feeling of utter loneliness that had struck his chest, the nameless fear that threatened to string him up.

Jughead shuffles closer to him. Archie can make out most of his mousy face now, and he’s looking at Archie thoughtfully. “I’m sorry,” he tells Archie, “Is there anything I can do to make it better?”

Archie shakes his head. “No,” he rushes out. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself more than he already has, he just wants to go back to sleep.

Jughead smiles like he knows the exact thoughts running through Archie’s head, and he probably does; this is Jughead after all,  _his_ Jughead.

Jughead reaches a hand out and places it on Archie’s shoulder for a brief moment. “Do you want me to sleep in the bed with you?” Archie’s emotions immediately rile up his chest with embarrassment and shame. He’s about to splutter out some form of,  _Of course not,_ when Jughead smiles across at him. “I’m going to do it no matter what you say, by the way.”

For reasons he doesn’t understand, a weight seems to lift off of Archie’s chest. He feels relieved. He nods his head. “Yeah,” he breathes out, “Okay.”

Jughead lugs up the covers he was using on the mattress after claiming that Archie always hogs the blanket, and he settles next to Archie on the bed, wrapping himself up warmly.

They don’t say anything; both of them just lay there after they whisper good night to each other once again. They lay with their backs facing each other, and it’s the smallest thing in the world, the barest of touches, but the way Jughead’s back brushes up against his when he breathes is nice. The weight of having someone else on the other side of the bed is comforting.

The warm presence that Jughead radiates relaxes Archie, and soon his body is sinking into the mattress, the anxiety that had been flourishing around his body just a few minutes ago is gone and completely untraceable; Archie’s mind has since been wiped clean of any bad thoughts and the only thing he can think about as he drifts off to sleep is how he wouldn't know what to do if he didn't have Jughead there with him.

**Author's Note:**

> idk why everything i write for this series always ends with people in beds, but i guess i gotta keep the brand going
> 
> there is one more part to this bad boy that i gotta write, thanks for reading and sticking around pals!!


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